LITERALLY CALLING the Freundel Stuart administration a “hard ears” Government, economist Professor Michael Howard says failure to take advice has resulted in Barbados being faced with serious economic problems.
“The present Barbados Government has failed significantly in its fiscal and monetary management as well as the management of the country’s foreign reserves,” he told the DAILY NATION yesterday.
Noting that the reserves had fallen to $681 million or 10.3 weeks of imports, Howard said when he called on Government to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2013, the reserves were much higher.
“The strict discipline which has to be practised under an official IMF programme would have restored the fiscal balance and raised the level of reserves. Government also ignored my advice in 2016 because they feared the political fallout and the admission of policy failure,” he added. (TS)
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