Economic Advisor to the government, Dr. Kevin Greenidge.
Economic Advisor to the government, Dr. Kevin Greenidge, says the BOSS
programme will create much needed fiscal space for the island.
Speaking to the trade union movement and government workers yesterday
at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium, during the first of six meetings to
outline the workings of the Barbados Options Savings Scheme (BOSS)
proposal, he assured persons that the offered bonds are immune from
restructuring and tradeable.
“We are creating an environment where the demand for the bonds are
there and the credit unions have expressed that they are on board,” he
said, while outlining expectations that these establishments would
soon approach the Central Bank to give the figure of the amount they
desire to purchase.
Greenidge said in light of banks’ low interest offerings for savings,
the bonds are the better bet. “Truth be told, financial institutions
and most people would be looking for it because there is nothing else
to put your money in, except out your money in the bank or put it
under the bed where you would be earning nothing. So it is fully
tradeable and as the Prime Minister indicated, these bonds are fully
immune from any possible restructuring because as with last time,
savings bonds were immune from restructuring. Now I don’t want
anyone…to believe that we are thinking of restructuring again because
that is, in my view, not possible,” he stated.
Giving an update on the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation
(BERT) programme, which has been in place for almost two years, he
said government has drastically reduced the country’s arrears from
$1.9 billion and an average fiscal deficit of seven per cent – “an
unsustainable position.”
“So through the BERT programme we have paid down the arrears now to
where we owe just a bit more than $200 million in arrears. We are
paying bills on time and now we are running small surpluses and
primary balances of six per cent that we can pay down debt. So you
don’t want when a temporary shock hits you to get careless…and when
the world opens up you are catching your tail and don’t know what to
do,” the economist argued.
(JMB)