Filtering Truth From Fact About The Performance Of The Barbados Economy

Governor of the Central Bank Dr. Delisle Worrell

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently released a statement on the Barbados economy which has caused some Barbadians to sigh with relief. Central Bank Governor Delisle Worrell was also also full of glad tiding in April when he forecast the economy to grow 2% during his Review of Barbados’ Economy for the First Three Months of 2011. Why is BU not as optimistic?

Is it not ironic suggesting growth for an economy which relies heavily on that of the United States? The US legislature is currently debating whether to raise its debt ceiling to 16 trillion dollars!   Following close behind the US is the UK government  who has committed to cut 600,000 government workers over a three year period. How can we be so confident about growth when the two main markets we rely on for inflows of tourist, foreign direct investment and remittances continue to struggle? What growth the US has managed to achieve in the last year is what the economists refer to as jobless growth.

Given the prevailing economic uncertainty one might have reasonably expected our intellectual cadre of professors at Cave Hill,  to have come to the assistance of ordinary Barbadians, and provide an unbiased and reasoned interventions to demystify the economic gobbledygook we are being fed. No such luck. Instead what we have had to ‘processed’ is an attack on the credibility of the information presented by the Central Bank of Barbados in its periodic updates  to the nation. The Central Bank of Barbados has always held the respect of both sides of the political spectrum in Barbados. This is our first recollection of any Governor of the Central Bank attracting the kind of attack delivered with the fierceness as we are witnessing from former Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition Owen Arthur and former Central Banker, economist and Arthur’ s right hand man Clyde Mascoll. They have both vehemently dismissed the view posited by Governor Worrell that the economy has grown.