As Barbados tries to determine the best way out of the current economic malaise, a senior economist says the country runs the risk of talking itself into deeper economic problems and creating conditions for self-defeat.
Further, former president of the Barbados Economic Society (BES) Anthony Johnson is convinced that continued undermining of key institutions such as the Central Bank of Barbados and their leaders only adds to the current problems.
In a recent interview with BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY, Johnson said: “Although you may come up with a workable plan, if the actors in the field do not find some confidence in the ability of these variables to impact positively – if they continue to be undermined . . . then that enforces the downturn in consumer and investor confidence.”
He added: “So the whole thing becomes self-defeating.”
Johnson, who once headed the precursor entity to the Barbados Stock Exchange, said he disagreed with a fellow economist who suggested recently that Barbados did not have a revenue problem but an expenditure one.
“He took the American situation and tried to juxtapose that on the Caribbean by suggesting that there is no revenue deficit but mainly an expenditure problem. Again that can’t be true because revenue is limited,” the former BES president said.
“At this time we need to address both revenue and expenditure but it is pointless to take up the American situation where you talk about no increase in taxation and . . . put the burden on the vulnerable groups and lower income groups.
“That is not an appropriate policy because that is now showing itself in what is happening in the United Kingdom where there is tremendous social unrest.
“This is the dilemma that we find ourselves in,” he contended.