From left: Dr. Marion Williams (left) in conversation with Sir Stephen Emtage, Senator Geoffrey Cave and Lady Emtage.
‘No’ to IMF
10/30/2009
OUTGOING Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados (CBB), Dr. Marion Williams, is advising the government to keep the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at arm’s-length.
In a speech at a farewell function in her honour on Wednesday night at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Dr. Williams said that while the country must make sure it continues to value the advice of the Fund and their technical assistance, “we must keep them at arms length”.
According to her, “When it comes to our policy making, that should always be a national matter”.
Several countries across the Caribbean are turning to the Washington-based IMF for assistance to help them ride out the global financial and economic crisis, which has caused economic slowdown, higher unemployment and rising fiscal imbalances.
Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are among the two countries that indicated they will not be following some of the others in tapping the IMF for assistance.
In a wide-ranging address, Dr. Williams thanked many persons and organisations for the support rendered over the years. Among them were Prime Minister David Thompson.
She said that the Prime Minister is prepared to take the high road and to preserve the independence of the Central Bank of Barbados and the operational autonomy of the Banks’ Board of directors. “I thank him for his insight and his understanding that a strong CBB will help to make his government and the economy stronger,” said Dr. Williams.
She said that over the years the Bank has tried to be a centre of excellence and that the vision of the organisation had both explicitly and implicitly suited that. “It is true that we have had hiccups along the way, but we have managed to make continuing progress. We have had to defend those gains from time to time,” Dr. Williams recalled.
She lauded the staff at the Bank, saying that they are very competent. “We are in good hands,” she said.
The Governor noted that in many ways Barbados has been able to cope well over the last 18 months of the global financial and economic crisis. She attributed this to the country’s experience in 1991/1992, which was an occasion of economic austerity.
“We have learnt a few lessons about managing in hard times, because we did a good job then and the appreciation by the public about what had to be done in those circumstances was well understood,” Dr. Williams reasoned. (JB)
