Tag Archives: Central Bank Governor

Notes From a Native Son: Captain the Ship is Sinking – Is Worrell the Best Man to be in Charge of the Central Bank at a Time like this?

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Hal Austin

Hal Austin

Introduction:
In the preface to its recent Alternative Worlds report, the US National Intelligence Council observed: “The world of 2030 will be radically transformed from our world today. By 2030, no country – whether the US, China, or any other large country – will be a hegemonic power. “The empowerment of individuals and diffusion of power among states and from states to informal networks will have a dramatic impact, largely reversing the historic rise of the West since 1750, restoring Asia’s weight in the global economy, and ushering in a new era of “democratisation” at the international and domestic level….”. In other words, even at the highest level of the inward-looking US, there is a realisation that the world is changing.

However, reading the over-optimistic, even fictional, recent central bank review of the economy and projections for 2013, one would not get this impression. The report tells us the fiscal deficit is growing, up from 5.2 per cent April to December 2011, to 6.2 per cent in 2012; personal taxes are down ten per cent and VAT fell by two per cent for the same period; subsidies to government entities rose by two per cent and interest rates rose by four per cent. Public sector debt is 54 per cent of GDP, and including the national insurance scheme, it rises to 83 per cent of GDP. But, in about or real optimism, the review predicts that growth over 2013 will be 0.7 per cent, based on the IMF predictions of growth in the US, UK and Canada, our major trading partners. Apart from the fact that I was under the impression the Caricom was our major trading bloc, to base projected growth of the Barbados economy on the projections for those three economies is economic lunacy.

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Two Down-to-Earth Bajan Scholars Making Waves

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Submitted by William Skinner

Governor Delisle Worrell (l) CJ Marston Gibson (r)

Anybody remotely acquainted with Dr. Delisle Worrell, the distinguished governor of our central bank, would not be surprised that he is now being judged on such unimportant matters as to how he dresses and what he parades in during the Festival of Flesh that was once Crop Over.

First, let me state without apology, that both Dr. Worrell and our new Chief Justice Mr. Marston Gibson, represent a breath of fresh air blowing through the corridors of snobbery and intellectual arrogance, that passes as brilliance in our country. It is obvious, that neither of these two obviously brilliant minds have caught the eye of those intellectual frauds that masquerade about here as if this country is their exclusive academic playground. Lord Nelson will turn into Bussa ,and vice versa, before the likes of an Owen Arthur or his willing side kick, Clyde Mascoll succeeds in turning Dr .Worrell into” an economist of Lilliputian status”. Anybody, who has taken five minutes to research Dr. Worrell’s work, will know that neither of these two gentlemen is held in the esteem that comes close to the good Governor’s standing in intellectual circles. It simply does not merit any serious discussion.

We have long held Bishops, Chief Justices and Governors of the central bank in such high regard, that we sometimes forget that they are accountable to the people. And that in the case of Governors of Central Banks and Chief Justices, we are the ones who pay them, and pay them very well, taking into consideration our meagre resources. The same can be said of Commissioners of Police and other powerful professionals. By all means we must respect the office but don’t allow them to believe and act as if they should not or cannot be touched.

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