‘IMF won’t be enough for economic recovery’ – Sealy

Barbados will need more than the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if its economy is to fully recover, former Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy declared Friday.

And he called on Government to start prioritizing its own goals for an economic rebound.

Delivering the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) Astor B Watts Lunchtime Lecture on the topic, Exploring Barbados’ Relationship with the IMF at the party’s George Street headquarters, Sealy said it was simply not enough to meet IMF targets.

The Mia Mottley administration entered into the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT), an austerity programme with the IMF in October, 2018, in an effort to fix severe economic difficulties that threatened the fixed exchange rate of the Barbados dollar.

Following its approval of the BERT programme, the IMF provided a stand-by facility of nearly $600 million (US$290 million).

But Sealy pointed out that Government needed to do what was best for the country and not the IMF.

He said: “I believe that the only way forward is for us to recognize that we have to start to accord priority to what we want to see happen in Barbados. I do not think that meeting IMF targets alone is going to do it.

“I think that we have to figure out once and for all how to get our productive capacity going. That is the only way we are going to get out of this situation.”

He continued: “The biggest problem that I currently have with this Government is what are you setting out by way of a vision that goes beyond the IMF programme?

“National development is not about meeting IMF targets. We have to decide what is important for ourselves, what we accord priority toward and we must also keep that in mind.

“Government made heavy weather of the debt restructuring and now we are hearing that because of COVID spend that the debt to GDP ratio is back up, north of 130 per cent.”

But Sealy declared that the country’s debt problems did not start either with the governing Barbados Labour Party or the DLP administration in which he served, but is a longstanding issue spanning decades.

He said while the 2008-2018 DLP administration opted not to go the route of the IMF to address Barbados’ economic challenges, it had implemented several homegrown programmes such as the National Economic and Social Developmental Restructuring Enhancement Programme (NESDREP).

Sealy said that the Social Partners, including the heads of the private sector, trade unions and the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), had endorsed that initiative. (RB)