The Hon. Prime Minister Mia Mottley (left) at yesterday’s meeting. Looking on are Minister of Labour and the Social Partnership, Colin Jordan and Information Officer with the Barbados Government Information Service, Sharon Austin Gill-Moore.
Social Partners meet again
For the third time since coming to office, the Barbados Labour Party Government convened a meeting with the Social Partnership.
Among those attending yesterday’s Social Partnership meeting, which was expected to be an intense work session, were Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association, Charles Herbert; President of the National Union of Public Workers, Akanni McDowall and General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union, Senator Toni Moore.
On the Government’s side, leading the delegation was Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who was accompanied by Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Ryan Straughn; Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs Marsha Caddle; Minister of Labour and Social Partnership, Colin Jordan and Ambassador Dr. Clyde Mascoll, Chief Economic Counsellor to the Minister of Finance, among others.
Yesterday’s meeting, which was closed to the media, was held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre. It came on the heels of the meeting held last Friday at the same location, which at the conclusion; Prime Minister Mottley announced that Government had decided to suspend payments due on debts owed to external commercial creditors. But, she said the intention is to make scheduled domestic interest payments, but domestic creditors will be asked to roll over principal maturities until restructuring agreements are concluded.
In last week’s briefing Prime Minister Mottley also revealed that Government was working to complete a comprehensive economic reform programme for the country, which she explained is intended to stabilise the public finances and create an environment to facilitate a return of sustained economic growth. She indicated that that plan is designed to attract balance of payments support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), of which a team is expected to be in Barbados as of today to begin discussions.
That IMF team is being led by Dr Bert van Selm, formerly the IMF resident representative to Jamaica. In a statement regarding Dr van Selm’s visit, Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde stated that their “ultimate goal” is to assist Barbados in achieving not only higher living standards, but more inclusive growth going forward.
Should Barbados enter into a formal IMF plan, it would be the first time since the early 1990s that the country would have done so.