ECONOMIST Professor Michael Howard says Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler made an error of judgement by not going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at least three years ago.
The retired senior lecturer at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies said he endorsed former Prime Minister Owen Arthur’s recent suggestion that the Barbados Government should negotiate a formal agreement with the IMF as a source of financial accommodation, rather than continue “on this money-printing, so-called home-grown fiscal programme”.
Howard referred to his call three years ago in the October 30, 2013 edition of the MIDWEEK NATION when he advised the Freundel Stuart Government to seek the assistance of the IMF as a cheap source of funding and balance of payments support.
“I think that the finance minister at that time misunderstood the nature of the ‘chronic fiscal deficit’ which world renowned public finance economist Vito Tanzi called ‘fiscal disequilibrium’. (TS)
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