IMF chief gets first-hand look at Barbados and pressing challenges confronting the country

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva got a first-hand view of some of Barbados’ infrastructural challenges and development concerns as she learned from Prime Minister Mia Mottley of some of the plans the country was pursuing.

Accompanied by government ministers and other officials, and members of the IMF team, they went on a tour of selected areas across the island on Wednesday as they discussed several issues relating to development and financing.

With another expected active hurricane season currently forecasted, Prime Minister Mia Mottley used the opportunity to point out to the IMF boss the island’s need for improvement in the housing stock if the country was to be spared the worse from a hurricane system.

The climate change champion pointed out that her administration has already begun to retrofit roofs to be able to withstand certain categories of a hurricane. She noted however, “If this country is hit for four, five or six hours, or worse than that like [Hurricane] Dorian in the Bahamas that hit for two days, we will lose 70 per cent of our low income housing stock because of the roofs.”

She said it was for that reason she has been leading a special programme to get hurricane straps installed. However, she indicated “Even with the hurricane straps, we have to hope that we get nothing more than a category two hurricane.”

Mottley agreed that a new building standard was needed for new homes, while pointing out that the older houses were simply too old to have the newer roof requirements.

The Prime Minister told Georgieva about her government’s plan to build some 10,000 houses with solar photovoltaic systems for low to middle income earners over the next four to five years. She suggested the number of houses could be a lot higher if all goes according to plan.

Mottley also informed the IMF chief of her Government’s plan to exit the sugarcane industry, restructure it and allow the private sector to operate it, while ensuring that some of the island’s energy needs are met from that sector.

“The Government of Barbados has put more than $1 billion over the last 50 years in stabilising the sugar industry. I have no more money to do it, so either they are going to utilise and allow a three-month power factory to become a 12-month power factory by reason of access to biomass and renewable energy, or the industry will die,” said Mottley.

“They have all agreed that we will come out of the sugar industry and the private sector will take up the industry,” she added.

Georgieva, who is visiting the island for the first time since she took up the post in 2019, was also given an update on the challenges the island was facing in relation to high food costs, the impact of non-communicable diseases on the population and the need for the island to ramp up its food and nutrition security.

“As we have been importing more processed food our NCDs have exploded and it is causing us a fiscal crisis on health as well as on the fact that we haven’t got cheaper food,” said Avinash Persaud, Special Envoy to the Prime Minister on Investment and Financial Services.

Agreeing that the energy and food costs were serious issues facing the globe, Georgieva said “That is a problem that is going to be with us this year and very likely next year.

“So we all have to work together – the international organisations have a responsibility, national governments have responsibilities and residents have responsibilities – so that we don’t turn this into a crisis,” she advised.

Mottley informed her of the plan to make Barbados a logistics hub for exports out of Guyana, as part of efforts to reduce the region’s food import bill.

Pointing out that Georgetown was many times larger than Bridgetown, Mottley said “We say ‘okay we will be the logistics hub and we will also establish a Barbados/Guyana food terminal [for which] we are now trying to get finance’,” said Mottley.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb