The following letter to the editor was written by Garnett Roper, a member of the People's National Party's National Executive Council and chairman of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company.







THE EDITOR, Sir:







In regard to the announcement by Finance Minister Dr Peter Philips that Jamaica has not met the deadline for its request for an Extended Fund Facility to reach the IMF Board at the end of March 2013, are we ignoring the elephant in the room?







Is there a basis to deny that an unstated pre-conditionality of the IMF is that the Jamaican dollar should reach the new low of $100 to U$1 before an agreement is signed?







There is clamour that the Jamaican dollar is over-valued.







Is this a shared position by the IMF and therefore an implicit if not cynical requirement that the magical low be attained before anything else happens?







The effect of doing it this way is that when the dollar reaches the $100-to US$1-mark, no one can blame the IMF.







The suggestion that the delay is caused by a failure of the Washington Consensus – the IMF World Bank and IDB – to agree on their share of U$750M is a facile over-simplification.







The relative sums involved are tantamount to petty cash for those institutions.







My hope is that it is $100 to US$1, but it could be $150 to US$1, who knows and who cares? Certainly not the IMF.







GARNETT ROPER



garnettroper@hotmail.com