At last someone has stood up to and taken on the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It happened on October 14 at Hotel Okura in Tokyo, Japan, and the person was none other than our own Central Bank of Barbados Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell, who took the fight to the agency’s boss, managing director Christine Lagarde.
He made it known that devaluation of the Barbados dollar – which has been pegged to the United States dollar at two to one since 1973 – was not on the agenda.
This incident showed that Dr Worrell had courage and was not afraid to make his objections. We need more Central Bank governors like him in the Caribbean. It also shows that Barbados has a Central Bank Governor we can be proud of.
From all reports, the debate between Madame Lagarde, a former minister of finance of France, and Dr Worrell, who stuck to his guns, was a very vigorous and heated one. He gave the IMF boss a “no-no” on devaluation for Barbados. He rejected her option of devaluation and the notion that economic growth could be achieved from it.
Dr Worrell must be congratulated for his boldness and frankness. Keep it up, sir. The time was right to show the outside world we have some very fine brains in Barbados and the Caribbean.
