Falling short
A Cabinet Minister is chiding CARICOM for not doing enough for its member states as it relates to protecting the financial services sector, and he argues this lack of attention is doing the region a grave disservice.
Speaking with The Barbados Advocate recently, Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, Donville Inniss, reflecting on last month’s blacklisting of some Caribbean islands, including Barbados, by the American state of Illinois, contended that the regional grouping has not taken financial services as seriously as it should, but he is adamant that it is not too late to give the area the attention it deserves. Inniss expressed his concern as he noted how easily and without due process Caribbean countries are being blacklisted, and how those actions have and continue to stifle international trade and international business within the jurisdictions and across the region.
“Financial services have been critical to the survival of our economies in the region. They have jumped recently on the bandwagon of correspondent banking issues, and that is a serious issue, but correspondent banking cannot be divorced from the broader issues of international finance and international business. So you’re not getting the region coming together to come to a common understanding of the broader issues, and to craft the appropriate responses,” he lamented.
Inniss added, “So we are still 15 nations going into the international fora, grappling with an understanding of the issues and then perhaps 15 divergent positions on the matter, and I have been saying publicly and privately in regional meetings that we really need to come together.”
The International Business Minister, adamant that the international business and financial services sector is more important than many of the other issues being addressed by the regional grouping, warned that if greater focus is not placed on the sector, the economies of the region could be in jeopardy.
“This is an issue that affects the survival of each economy in the region. So our health-care systems in the region are at risk of not being adequately financed if we do not get it right in international finance and business. Our agricultural sector would be under immense pressure if we don’t get it right in these areas, but it is like pulling teeth to get the folks in Georgetown, Guyana to understand the issues and I would go as far as to suggest that I do not think the leaders in the region appreciate the gravity of the situation,” he stated.
A passionate Inniss went on to say that he has been asking for some time now for a regional secretariat for financial services, but lamented that the idea has not received any traction. He made the point as he disclosed that in his bid to have such an entity established, he even found a Barbadian who has committed US$500 000 towards the establishment of such a secretariat; but he contended, the idea has remained just that.
“All we are asking is for two or three people, but it is not the infrastructure alone, it is to get an understanding across the region as to the importance of the international financial services sector. So today people are making a lot of noise about correspondent banking and such like, but if we don’t get it right and stop countries from blacklisting us, we are going to have a greater fight than correspondent banking issues on our hands,” the International Business Minister warned. (JRT)