Smart spending a must in local economy

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will be working with the Barbados Government to establish a Digital Dashboard, to help monitor public spending.

Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Investment, Marsha Caddle, revealed the above as she delivered remarks during the IDB’s Book Launch and Panel Discussion on “Barbados: Better Spending for Better Lives”, at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel yesterday. The Barbados Book Launch was based on the IDB’s Development in the Americas Report for 2018 and Caddle sought to address some areas in that report.

“The report makes the point that for example, that public investment in infrastructure has been one of the areas historically in Latin America and the Caribbean, where there have been high levels of inefficiency in spending, high areas of what we call leakage and we know that in the decade between 2008 and 2018, there was a lot of that inefficiency,” Caddle remarked.

“And so what is the government of Barbados to do? One is reforming our procurement practices. Another and it is quite simple, but it works, is looking at how you approach project management. IDB is helping us with the establishment of a Digital Dashboard and that Digital Dashboard is going to help us monitor, but also help people monitor how we are doing on our public spending, to be able to see clearly what the expenditure is, when it is being made and to see that capital projects are implemented in a way that is timely and that minimises inefficiency losses,” Caddle further commented.

A closer look at the 2018 edition of the Development in the Americas (DIA) Report shows that it reviews and provides region-wide evidence of how fiscal efficiency and smart spending, rather than the standard solution of across-the-board expenditure cuts, can achieve fiscal sustainability.

According to the IDB, “These issues are extremely relevant for Caribbean countries and Barbados’ current economic context.”

Alejandro Izquierdo and Carola Pessino, Publication Co-Editors of the IDB’s Book entitled “Better Spending for Better Lives: How Latin America and the Caribbean Can Do More with Less”, meanwhile noted that Barbados perhaps needs a Spending Quality Agency that could be in the Ministry of Finance for example, to look at the different types of expenditure being dished out and to also reallocate spending in some parts of the budget, to other areas which could prove more profitable.

The session later closed with a panel discussion, which focused on relevant lessons learned and policies related to Barbados’ reform efforts.
(RSM)