The 30th Meeting of Caricom heads failed to attract the requisite level of attention from the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to articulate their views on the need for reform.
President Bharrat Jagdeo, who chaired the three-day meeting, which ended yesterday, told reporters during a brief interview that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank wanted to send two junior representatives to hear the views of Caricom and he did not allow this to happen.
Caricom wants a say in decision-making in these institutions and a reform of the instruments through which they relate to smaller countries. Jagdeo cited the loan and grant instruments as two examples.
He explained that since small countries do not generate significant global investment they had a difficulty in demanding high level attention because “we don’t pose systemic risks”.
Jagdeo said Caricom would now have to revert to getting large countries sympathetic to its views so as to help push the agenda and lead a démarche in Washington and other countries.
“There has to be a reform to these instruments to give greater voice to the developing world,” Jagdeo insisted.
In terms of staving off economic peril given the current world financial crisis, Jagdeo said there was clearly a need to look at the mobilization of internal resources, so the region could use its own resources to push development.
He said there were significant reserves held outside the region, and a policy would have to be devised to invest those resources. He, however, acknowledged that this would be a sovereign issue.
Jagdeo said too that the region had to do things to make the Caribbean more attractive to non-traditional investors. He said India, China and Brazil were willing to assist through financial cooperation.
He acknowledged that many countries may need short-term assistance but bilateral sources may not be able to help immediately since they too are affected by the crisis.
He said the alternative is for the region to continue working with the IFIs to ensure that the money pledged at the G20 reaches to some countries quickly.
Mr Jagdeo is talking baloney as usual. His ego is so big that he fails to see his deficiencies which are too many to count. He talked about mobilising internal resources. Past and present continue to talk about this and little is done. Guyana has relegated itself to a mendicant status and does not learn from its peers like little Barbados. Guyana needs a leader who has business skills and acumen, only one person to date was so qualified, the late head of Banks DIH. CARICOM is a meeting of leaders to talk about this and that and socialise, nothing more.
Jagdeo has to have his begging bowl out…..hahahahah this is the only strategy if you can call it that which he has.
It is a reflex action for the man now. You say boo and he says hey can you give us some money?
I hereby christen u Bharrat Begdeo
Until Caribbean leaders acknowledge that the IFI’s are not in the business of development of any kind, then nothing will ever change. These are all profiteering institutions nothing more nothing less.
The foreign consultants that come along as part and parcel of the loan packages are first and foremost salesmen of the multinational. Their job is to submit “feasability studies” that dictates that 40 million dollars of the 50 million dollar loan go to the purchase of expensive equipment that the country do not need.
Not a single country in the third world has ever developed and progressed by taking on all those foreign loans. They cannot progress when the return on their goods and production has to be siphoned off to repay the foreign loan with interest.
When the US president came to the last Caribbean summit meeting he declared that the USA was the most prosperous and powerful country on earth. What he did not reveal was that the USA was the only country on earth that was allowed to borrow money goods and services without ever having to pay anything for it. What other system do we know of that operated that way? That’s right my friends it was slavery.
SN had a recent article which said that an extension officer attached the IDB has introduced an IFS system whereby farmers are taught to build biodigesters and use duckweed to feed their chicken and pigs.
No mention was ever made of such a system until I suggested it on the SN blog. I have many of the long time bloggers Amen-ra, Carl Veecock, Sandhurt first, Soesdyke, Satish who can attest to that.
In the interest of truth and honesty in reporting I am asking the SN moderator to set the record straight. I am not against any of the local boys claiming credit for this method but to give credit to a foreign profiteering institution is totally false and inaccurate.
Joe.
Moderator’s note: There was no intention to say that the IDB had “discovered” it, only that it was being used by the Trafalgar group. Bloggers are well aware that Joe has long pushed low-tech and innovative solutions.
Why are we in this inept gathering of a beggar bowl is a mystery. Caricom has nothing to offer Guyana.