Monday, March 5, 2012

Bloomberg corrects statement made by PM Portia Simpson Miller

RJR News | 5 March 2012


Bloomberg News has made a correction to an article published on March 2, which quoted Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller as describing the Jamaica Debt Exchange programme, JDX, as a failure.

In a publication Saturday, Bloomberg corrected the statement made by the Prime Minister and added a comment from the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party, on the issue.

The correction quoted Mrs Simpson-Miller as saying that an IMF accord that included a 1.27 billion dollar loan fell apart after the previous administration failed to share information with the Washington-based lender for almost a year.

It added that the prime minister said the loan had been linked to the successful swap of 7.8 billion dollars of local bonds in 2010, for securities with longer maturities and lower interest rates.

Bloomberg, in its reworked story, said that an official with the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party called Mrs. Simpson Miller's statements inaccurate.

According to Saturday’s publication, Audley Shaw, Opposition Spokesman on Finance, has said "There was no failure to share information with the IMF for one year."

On Friday, the original article published by Bloomberg drew the ire of the former Finance Minister, who blasted the Prime Minister, and demanded that the story be corrected in order to preserve Jamaica's reputation on the international capital market.

However, Jamaica House said at no time during the interview with Bloomberg did the Prime Minister make any mention of the JDX programme.

A senior official said the original quote attributed to Mrs Simpson Miller was erroneous and that a retraction would be demanded.

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