Jamaica’s tumultuous relationship with the IMF has a happy ending

SOME 70 PEOPLE gathered under a tent on a balmy Monday evening recently in Trench Town, a stone’s throw from the housing project where Bob Marley grew up. Outside, three policemen armed with rifles patrolled in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Trench Town is one of the roughest neighbourhoods of Kingston, Jamaica’s capital. But the mood in the tent is mellow. The air smells faintly of ganja. The Trench Townspeople have gathered not to talk about violence but about economic policy.

One participant, Sarah, asks Mark Golding, an opposition MP sitting atop a bar stool, how “the man selling bag juice on the road” is benefiting from reforms mandated by the IMF. Barrington, another local, wants to know about the effects of raising sales tax. “When we go buy a pound of flour we pay tax,” he notes, “but where do our taxes go?”