THE OPPOSITION Barbados Labour Party is maintaining that even with revised projections, 2.5 per cent growth would do very little to turn around the Barbados economy.
Opposition spokesman on the economy, Clyde Mascoll, told the DAILY NATION yesterday that even if the Barbados Central Bank’s economic growth projection for the first three months of 2011 is revised to 2.5 per cent “then the growth would still be inadequate to close the whopping deficit of $540 million on the Government’s current account”.
His comment came on the heels of a Front Page report in yesterday’s SUNDAY SUN which noted that the Central Bank was said to be revising its economic growth projection for the first three months of 2011, upping it from two per cent to 2.5 per cent.
But Mascoll said that if less than a month ago the Governor of the Central Bank reported that the Barbados economy had contracted, but it was now being reported that there was “paltry” economic growth in 2010, “then this speaks to the comment by the Governor of the bank with respect to the bank’s forecast being no better than that of a fortune-teller”.
Mascoll added that while there was nothing wrong in revising a figure, as is the practice around the world, it was fascinating that the bank was now “upping [the figure] from two per cent to 2.5 per cent” while there was an already known figure of 2.5 per cent.
His comments followed Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler’s announcement that Government’s revised figures showed the economy grew by 0.3 per cent at the end of last year and had not contracted by 0.4 per cent as earlier believed.
Mascoll, an economist, described Sinckler’s comment as “the latest of a series of disturbing comments which . . . reflect a lack of clarity on the issues, an inconsistency of thought and a general uncertainty about the way forward”.