Barrow quotes Central Bank to attack govt.
For his part the opposition leader used the opportunity to zero in on specific government policies that his party found lacking.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“The newly revived claim to our country by the Republic of Guatemala is as real as it is unjust. We are thankful that there is a semblance of national unity in the face of this clear and present danger, and we also welcome what appears to be the mutual resolve to settle the matter without formal recourse to force. The process of facilitation under the aegis of the Organisation of American States, as well as the formation of the bilateral Mixed Commission, is therefore a useful development. But are we really doing all that we should to make out our position legally and diplomatically impregnable? It is obvious that the Guatemalans are pressing on both those fronts. For our part, especially with respect to the juridical challenge, no resource should be spared in arming our negotiators with the best possible international law expertise to articulate our case and marshal our advocacy.”
Here at home the factual, albeit unannounced, downsizing of the BDF is not an encouraging sign. There has been no new intake for going on three years, and none seems planned. With the rate of attrition, this amounts to an emasculation of the Force at precisely the time when, for both practical and psychological reasons, our army should be at its strongest.”
“On the purely domestic front, there is, as well, no room for complacency. Concern is growing over the continuing sale of our national assets, including those having a state security dimension, without any thought to the longer-term social, industrial and economic implications. Neither consumers nor workers can be properly protected in conditions of monopoly ownership, and repatriation of huge profits has obvious foreign exchange consequences. The true partnership with external investment that all of us want has been distorted into a quick cash surrender of our essential utilities to foreigners. As the BTL crisis shows, there are larger considerations of economic sovereignty involved in these wholesale handoffs; and such considerations are now publicly prayed in aid of government’s fight with BTL. Yet it is the very government that in the first place ignored these consideration when it sold control of the telecommunications monopoly, and that is doing so again as it makes new plans to auction off WASA, the Port Authority and the Philip Goldson International Airport.”
But Barrow’s gentlemanly manner merely laid the groundwork for what proved to be the morning’s bombshell: A Central Bank memorandum that warned of imminent financial ruin.
Dean Barrow
“There is a document that I have been given, which is a memo prepared by the Central Bank and for Board of Directors. It is dated September 8th, 2000, and what it has to say is nothing short of frightening. That document makes unambiguously clear that the economic measures pursued since November of 1998, threaten now to provoke a full-fledged balance of payments and foreign exchange crisis for our country.”
“In particular, says the Central Bank, the relaxation of monetary policy combined with the increase in central government’s fiscal deficit as a result of its unchecked spending, has resulted in a breakneck and unsustainable private and public sector demand for foreign exchange. This turn has caused huge declines in the country’s net official reserves in 1999, only partially masked by inflows from the sale of BEL and from foreign loans.”
“The position, the Bank warns, has considerably worsened during the first half of the year 2000, as the use of foreign exchange for imports for consumption rather than production, has continued to grow wildly. The pressure on the reserves is now inordinate, leading the Bank to conclude “the situation is therefore not only unsustainable, but of crisis proportions.”
