Barbados: First 120 days – Mottley touts fiscal progress

The Mottley administration says that Barbados’ foreign reserve has improved over the past 4 months and there are signs that the prospects for a better economic situation are gaining momentum.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley, addressing supporters of her ruling Barbados Labor Party (BLP) earlier this week, said that the gross international reserves had also showed signs of improvement even before the island-nation had formally entered into the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“The truth is our gross international reserves as of the end of 3rd October is BDS$673 million (US$336.5 million),” Mottley said, defending her administration’s decision to impose stringent economic policies since coming to power in May this year.

She said the island-nation had already received BDS$100 million (US$50 million) funds under the EFF and was also looking forward to getting financial assistance from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

Mottley said that the independent vote of confidence given to her administration as a result of the IMF agreement would also be beneficial to the efforts at restructuring the ailing economy.

She reminded supporters of her statement that her administration would be suspending debt payments “because in truth and in fact Barbados had become insolvent.”

She added, that her predecessor, Freundel Stuart was incapable of making decisions regarding the country’s financial situation and “Barbados paid a dear price for a prime minister that could not make decisions.”

“Now, not every decision will always be correct or fully correct or 100 percent, but what you cannot do is to keep yourself paralysed in fear – and I am happy, less than 4 months after the election, I can stand before you to tell you that the IMF programme at least has been completed , that we were able to get them to accept a program that we crafted,” she said. – (CMC)