35 DAYS after assuming power, the deja vu Godmanis government has revealed its 100 day plan, meaning it is now only worth a 65 day plan. That’s inflation for you.

The word of God is that the next major date in the PM’s diary is Feb. 05 when he’ll meet with the Finance Ministry and Bank of Latvia to discuss how to tackle inflation, which is currently in excess of 14%. But as any prop forward knows (and Godmanis looks like he would have made a good one) tackling is one thing, but you’ve got to catch up with the bugger first.

Actually the main thrust of the 100 day plan seems to be that ministers should immediately go away and… er, make some plans.

The Economy Ministry then has until April 08 to report on inflation. The Foreign Ministry has a bit longer to thrash something out to shove under the noses of the Americans to try and get the visa-free travel scheme back on track. The Transport Ministry has until April 14 to sort out what to do with the postal service. Other items on the ‘to do’ list include attempting to stop the Lattelecom debacle getting any worse and tackling juvenile delinquency. Come Easter, Godmanis’ in-tray will need stressed steel girders to support the weight of paper in it.

It’s just a shame Godmanis can’t use his supernatural powers to rewind by 365 days. Anti-inflationary measures are notoriously slow to show results. Received wisdom is that the result of anti-inflation plans generally becomes evident about 2 years after introduction. Even if we assume that the Baltic economies are small enough to make them more nimble, it’s likely to be this time next year before we see any real impact of any measures taken in the next few weeks.

Arguably the modest measures introduced in March 2007 are only just starting to make a semblance of difference. Godmanis was talking today about inflation of 7-8% by September. Given that gas and electricity prices are set for huge hikes in March (when inflation will likely peak), that looks extremely optimistic.

It also makes it likely that whatever measures are decided upon, they will not be introduced until after the price spikes, otherwise the government’s actions would be accused of having no impact. If they wait until the likely peak has already been reached, they can claim credit for bringing it under control - even if their action plan is completely ineffective.

To get things moving in a suitably dynamic manner, Regional Minister Edgars Zalans appeared on Kas Notiek Latvija? the show he said he would never appear on, hosted by the man he said had serious problems. It was a good 10 minutes before Zalans could pluck up the nerve to look Janis Domburs in the eye. Then he waved a large map around for a bit during a discussion about planning, unaware that the viewer at home would have little hope of seeing what he was attempting to point out on a 14-inch screen.

And he was the man the People’s Party wanted to shoehorn into the premiership?

But one can’t help feeling that the phrase ‘100 days’ is unfortunate. The most famous 100 days in history is associated with a certain Napoleon Bonaparte. He had some impressive plans at the start of his 100 days, but at the other end of them he was somewhere called Waterloo.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Latvia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.