Governance chief calls for openness by Gov’t
While the UDP maps a strategy to keep its momentum going, others are equally enmeshed in the events surrounding the political and financial drama. One such person is Dr. Carla Barnett. As a former deputy governor of the Central Bank, second in command of CARICOM and now CEO in the Ministry of National Development, Barnett brings to the table an unequaled wealth of both academic and practical experience. She also happens to be chairman of the Governance Improvement Commission, a body that has already gone public on the need for official candor. News 5’s Stewart Krohn recently spoke to Barnett about a wide range of issues, beginning with the question of whether the nation is actually in crisis.
Dr. Carla Barnett, Chairman, Governance Commission
“If there is a crisis and I don’t know that there is; the situation is difficult. It is a difficult situation in terms of confidence in governance perhaps even to some extent a questioning of where we are as country. So, it is a very difficult place that Belize is right now. I think that how we come out of it will really determine how we solve our problems in the future. It’s a significant political situation.”
Stewart Krohn
“How do you begin to solve this difficult situation that we’re in?”
Dr. Carla Barnett, Chairman
“By being open–by being fully open with the facts so that people will understand because that’s part of the complication. Many people, if you listen to the airwaves to all of the stakeholders for example in the Social Security issue, a lot of what they say is prefaced by–well we don’t really know exactly and sometimes if people know exactly then they know what is perception and what is reality. So, I would begin by full disclosure. Once you’ve disclosed fully then you will have to determine what the next step is.”
Stewart Krohn
“Let’s look at this call for full disclosure. Does full disclosure simply mean the SSB or DFC just makes a list all its loans, marks them delinquent, marks them good, and puts the figures out or does full disclosure fully goes beyond publishing those figures to say how these decisions were made or who made these decisions? For example, the question of who made the decision to have SSB guarantee this broad portfolio of loans that subsequently turned bad–is that part of full disclosure? Do we need to know that?”
Dr. Carla Barnett, Chairman
“That could be seen as a part of full disclosure. The public will determine when it is satisfied if it has enough information. That is why that I believe that you have to make the information available upfront. I prefer not talk in terms of who did what although that is important in terms of resolving the particular issue. For me, the larger issue is why and how it happened and fixing the situations so that in the future, there is not that possibility of Social Security Board making investments in enterprises that are–certainly for my judgement–too risky for a Social Security scheme, which by definition should be more conservative.”
“What we have to be careful of when we are using the Social Security Board funds as a basis for development that development project that we are funding are clear, that the risks in those projects are mitigated as far as possible I believe that the Social Security Board in terms of assessing the viability of project needs to get independent an expert advice particularly for very large projects if that expertise doesn?t reside within the Social Security as an organization. So I am not saying that they should not, I am saying that there should be very clear roles that speak not only to the quality of the collateral but to the quality of the project.”
Quite apart from the specific prospects for Social Security, Barnett was asked to comment on the outlook for government’s finances.
Dr. Carla Barnett
“The situation is not one that I would describe as being out of control. There is nothing that I have seen that suggest to me that the situation particularly with the public finances that’s out of control, but it will take as it always should be strong and clear policies and decisiveness in terms of dealing with the issue of the fiscal deficit.”
Stewart Krohn
“Does that mean belt tightening?”
Dr. Carla Barnett
“That’s been said. It means that we have to stick to the budget as is. It means that in previous years when would have been able to go beyond our budget and have supplemental and all that; we can’t do that because our systems will not allow us to have extra resources to deal with those and that’s normal good financial management that we have to really be sure that we do.”
Apart from stating that its capital budget will be strictly enforced, government has not announced any specific belt tightening measures that it intends to implement.
