Straughn: Opposition leader ‘missed out’ on chance to fix budget process in IMF meeting snub

Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley may have missed an opportunity to recommend improvements to the national budget and strengthen parliamentary oversight of the budget process, Finance Minister Ryan Straughn has suggested.

His comments came in response to Bishop Atherley’s rejection of an invitation from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) team to meet with the House of Assembly Standing Finance Committee on Tuesday.

When House Speaker Arthur Holder informed lawmakers of the meeting, Bishop Atherley took to the floor and made clear that he had never received correspondence from an IMF team inviting him to any previous meetings with Government and he was therefore not prepared to meet with them.

He told the House: “The Opposition will not participate in this meeting with the IMF. I got notice of this yesterday morning, that is not my complaint. My complaint lies herein; the Government of Barbados has been in an arrangement with the IMF for the past three years plus months. Several engagements with IMF teams have taken place both physically and virtually.

“On no occasion up until this point has the Leader of the Opposition been given the courtesy of a call, a letter, a briefing, a conversation, a dialogue, with any representative members of the IMF teams that have been to Barbados.“I find this to be grossly out of order,” he contended,

Straughn explained that it was not the usual IMF Staff review team but rather a technical assistance mission to review the structure of the Ministry of Finance that is in the process of modernizing its operations.

He said: “As part of their mandate they wanted to review what happens at Parliament because obviously as we would appreciate we [Ministry of Finance]  do the numbers crunching and all the processing.

“And then they wanted to find out what happens at Parliament in the context of when we pass the Public Management Act that there will be new provisions in terms of providing the fiscal framework and the mid-year review.

“So they wanted to meet with the parliamentarians to understand the process, and what input they have on the budget and all those things.”

Straughn said it was “unfortunate” that Bishop Atherley who is also Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee opted out of the talks.

“But other members who form part of the Committee were present and represented what they were doing as part of the PAC, the minister  said.

“And therefore there was nothing particularly untoward about the meeting because it was really just about how the Ministry of Finance now and in the context of Parliament, how do we effectively improve not just where the formulation of the budget lies with the ministry but Parliament’s role as oversight with respect to the budget process.” (SD)