Whenever I hear of a journalist or media house banned by some misguided official, a familiar sad feeling washes over me.
You see, I too, have had the good fortune – how could it be otherwise, as no one wants to be party to high-handed undemocratic actions? – of being banned by the head of a state entity from doing my job. That time, only the reporter was banned by the Speaker of the House.
It is one of life’s delicious little ironies that that late unlamented person fancied himself as a journalist, being editor of a scandal sheet that probably wrecked more marriages than adultery.
Just when we thought we had left those dark ages, up comes the Governor of the Central Bank, who while not fancying himself as a journalist, does seem to relish being a “performer” on TV and new media.
But it is evident that during his tenure, the Central Bank is no longer the revered institution it once was.
There was a time when the voice of the governor was anticipated even though the message was not always in the favour of the wider public, for example, the chorus of wage restraint.
In addition, the publication of the bank’s annual report coincided with the annual Estimates and Budgetary debates. In fact, the frequency with which the report was quoted during those debates made it seem like the “bible” with respect to belief in the country’s economic circumstances.
It is true that the tradition of the budgetary presentation coming early in the year has been abandoned and with it the bank’s annual report is now made public in the latter half of the year. This reversal is at variance with the explosion in technology in the last 15 years.
For the most part, the head is the face of the institution, which in this case is the governor, whose second coming in the higher post has been less than stellar. The frequency and nature of his well-publicised spats have been uncharacteristic of the institution that literally and figuratively stood tall in the nation’s capital.
Perhaps the most outrageous was when the governor admitted conducting his own survey because he was dissatisfied with the unemployment rate provided by the Barbados Statistical Services.
Why should a statistic produced by an organisation that has been doing so for several decades be of such concern to a governor that he is prompted to conduct his own survey? Perhaps the most political of all economic indicators – the unemployment rate – became inconsistent with the chief economic adviser’s forecast given to the politicians.
For the longest time, there was something wrong with the governor’s public relations. In response to criticism, he observed that no one has a “magic bullet” and that there are no “fortune tellers” on the economy.
In essence, he was suggesting that notwithstanding all the technical expertise at the bank and the years of experience in analysing the economy, not even the bank’s cadre of professionals had the wherewithal to make sound judgement on its future performance. It was a serious indictment on himself as well as his staff that a fortune teller would do a better job.
Yet, in every Press release on the economy and Press conference held by the governor, he tells the public that the economy will not grow this year or in 2015 and it will recover in 2016. The problem is that the governor’s comments that no one knows what the future holds do not fit squarely with his ability to say what the economy will do in the future.
On the one hand, he chided his own profession for being unable to predict future behaviour but he is still able to speak with aplomb about the country’s economic future.
The lack of public relations skills is very much in evidence in his attitude towards the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the international credit rating agencies. In relation to the former, on the one hand, there seems to be an intellectual divide, while on the other hand there is agreement.
In relation to the agencies, in the past it was always the politicians who reacted negatively to a downgrading of Barbados’ credit rating; never the governor of the Central Bank.
It appears to me that the intellectual differences would have been best thrashed out with the IMF’s technical staff at the appropriate time and with the supportive research rather than at a meeting with the head, who sarcastically remarked that she was only a lawyer.
This public relations problem reached its zenith when the governor, with all his advisers, was not prevented from writing the terse one-sentence letter to the publisher of the NATION.
As this was being written Thursday morning, it appeared the parties have mended fences.
But the governor’s judgement without reference to the reverence of the institution and its past glory was consistent with his disposition in this second coming. There is an aura of impatience and perceived anger towards individuals and/or institutions with an alternative perspective or interpretation of facts, stated or implied.
So far, time has not been a friend of the governor as the eventually revealed evidence does not match his prior pronouncements, for the most part. It seems like there always has to be a major revision on the fiscal deficit and the reason for the fall in foreign reserves, or simply the lack of performance in the economy, among others.
There comes a time when we all heed a certain call; that time may be now for the governor.
• Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent.
