Barbados `can’t afford’ full CLICO bailout

(Barbados Nation) A CLICO solution that pleases all the interested parties looks unlikely.

That was the prognosis of Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) president Dr Warren Smith, who said Barbados could not afford to dig deep to bail out its own operations far less those in the Eastern Caribbean where the Barbados subsidiary of CL Financial sold millions of dollars in policies and investment instruments.

Addressing regional media in his first Press conference at the helm of the CDB, Smith said: “We have not seen any solutions that seem to us to be practical or affordable.

“I don’t think that the Government of Barbados is in any position to be able to dig deep to come up with resources to bail out either their own or the Eastern Caribbean countries, and the Eastern Caribbean countries can’t afford to do that.”