AN ENTITY’S PERSISTENCE may yet net it a share in a precious local jewel.
If our sources are right as usual, it seems that Government may change its position on a vital deal in order to get the cash it needs.
Usually reliable sources told Cou Cou that the authorities have begun talking in earnest about how they can sell the choice asset to the two interested parties – the resolute foreign-owned entity and the local one, which was chosen.
The discussion now reportedly surrounds the percentage of ownership each company will have. That is, whether it will be split 50-50 or 51-49.
The major hurdle the authorities face in reversing their earlier decision is how, at this late stage, they can get this abrupt turnaround past the regulators who have everything in hand. There is also the possible fall-out too they may face from their first choice suitor.
Why the change of heart?
Cou Cou was told it comes down to Government’s desperate need for cash. And given the prospect of a long, legal battle from the persistent entity which has deep pockets, it decided it would be better to split up the jewel than fight.
If Government has indeed thrown in the proverbial towel to secure the cash it needs, the next question is how are they going to explain to the public their sudden compulsion to ensure that both businesses get a piece of the precious jewel and not just one, as they were adamant about doing?
Once bitten, twice shy
IF OUR Democratic Labour Party-led Government goes to the International Monetary Fund for a bail-out from the fiscal grave they have dug for Barbados, it will have a historical problem to overcome.
The Washington-based body may find it difficult to trust the Government’s words because they were reportedly burnt by a DLP administration in 1991.
An aspect of that story was recently related on Facebook by the man who prepared the documentation for Barbados to go to the IMF back then.
Retired permanent secretary and economist Charlie Skeete, in response to a post recently, wrote: “Some of the comments made here makes it sound as though we chose to go to the IMF in 1990-91. The plain truth is we had no choice. Other comments seem to suggest that the 1990-91 programme was our last IMF Programme. It wasn’t. Still other comments seem to suggest it was our finest hour. It wasn’t.
“Among other things about which we should not be proud, and which ultimately cost us dearly, is that we took advantage of the IMF belief that we could be trusted to keep our word and that we were an ideal candidate for a less doctrinaire IMF approach.
“Much to the embarrassment of the IMF, we broke the agreement before the loan was fully disbursed and the team leader was denied her promotion.
“As a result, other IFIs (international financial institutions) withheld financing until there was a change of government and this prevented the programme from achieving a number of its goals.
The incoming government promptly amended the Constitution to make a cut in wages and salaries unconstitutional.”
If Skeete’s recollections are accurate, and if the IMF has a long institutional memory, Barbados may be faced with an inflexible, iron-clad agreement that allows no wiggle room.
