Government’s poor policy choices have deeply affected the economy, says Mascoll

THE Barbados economy is now in a more precarious condition in 2017, than it was in 2009.

Economic advisor to the Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP), Dr. Clyde Mascoll, suggested the above during a press conference held at the office of the Leader of the Opposition in the West Wing of Parliament this week.

“The foreign reserves are less than half of what they were. The national debt is more than double what it was. The economy is smaller. The fiscal debt is worse. The printing of money is scandalous. Poor policy choices are responsible for where we are as a country and not the international environment,” Mascoll charged.

Stressing that “better could have been done and can be done in Barbados”, Mascoll went on to state that, “a country that demonstrated the courage to make tough decisions in the past, has fallen over the last eight years, as Prime Minister Freundel Stuart and his Cabinet avoided critical decision making at every stage”.

“A simple economic sit-uation in 2008, when the country’s economic fundamentals were very solid, was badly handled. The conventional way of managing an economic recession, by using a fiscal stimulus, was rejected for excessive taxation,” Mascoll asserted.

“The elephant in the Cabinet room is lack of leadership. As far back as 2009/2010, a home-grown Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy was introduced to correct the fiscal accounts of the country. It was revised to no avail. Things have gotten worse. The rhetoric of the Government never matched the objectives of the policies. It was a case of persistent fiscal betrayal and denial on the part of the Government,” the BLP’s economic adviser added.

Apart from the obvious economic issues associated with the current impasse at the Central Bank, Mascoll noted that there are a number of other issues that raise the need for governance issues to be addressed.

He went on to state that whereas in 2008 the Central Bank held not one dollar in Government debt, in 2017 the bank holds in excess of 1.8 billion dollars of government debt.

“This holding of debt came from the printing of money,” Mascoll asserted.

The fact that the Bank prints money without having to seek the approval of Parliament, Mascoll said, is an issue that needs to be corrected via legislation. (RSM)