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Carl Greenidge hammers IDB President
…says Moreno sidelined Regional Officials from senior positions
By Gary Eleazar
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) commands a hefty loans and grants portfolio in the Region but the exclusion of Regional officials from the decision making halls of power at the International Financial Institution (IFI) is attracting some flack.
Carl Greenidge, a Former Finance Minister of Guyana and Regional heavyweight as it relates to finances, says that under the watch of the current President of the IDB Luis Alberto Moreno, Caribbean officials have disappeared from the senior levels of the bank.
Greenidge says this is even more worrying given the role the Caribbean played in the election of Moreno as IDB President.
Greenidge reiterated during an interview with this publication recently that A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) is extremely concerned with the workings of the IDB and its relationship with Guyana and in the Caribbean as a whole.
Former Finance Minister Carl Greenidge
“We are concerned over the sharing of the geographical distribution of senior positions within the Bank, especially on Moreno’s watch,” said Greenidge who called on the Regional Leaders to urgently address the issue.
He stressed that what is currently being experienced under Moreno’s watch as IDB President is that the Region seems to be “treated as though it doesn’t exist or it is an appendage.”
Greenidge lamented that currently the number of senior positions held in the Bank by Regional Officials is a far cry from before the current President (Moreno) took office.
“He has added two Vice-Presidents and none of them are going to the Region,” Greenidge also lamented.
He said that there are those in the Region who may feel that simply because they got a few positions at the national level, that it is adequate. This, according to Greenidge, is a situation that has to be addressed urgently.
Under Fire: IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno
The Former Guyana Finance Minister who also served as a Senior Director of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) now Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) from 2008 to 2010 says that as a member of a Bank, the Region should be treated in a manner consistent with its needs.
“I think the leaders of the Region have to take a more responsible position, especially at a difficult time like this to ensure that there is a defensible institutional arrangement that gives them the opportunity to learn about how the bank works by having officers in there and by influencing the bank’s decision making at the operational level as well as at the level of policy.”
Greenidge says that a cursory assessment of the IDB’s senior hierarchy would reveal that “at one time we had a number of managers there, former Ministers, former senior technicians at the level of planning even in the President’s Office.”
The Former Guyanese Finance Minister, who also served as Secretary General of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States from 1995 to 1996 says that “they (Regional Officials) have somehow disappeared in the course of Moreno’s settling in to the bank and I think it has to be made clear.”
Greenidge who also served as Deputy Secretary General of the ACP from October 1992 to February 2000 reminded that some of the officials that sat in senior positions at the IDB include Guyanese Camille Gaskin Wray as well as a Former Governor of the Trinidad and Tobago’s Central Bank, and a Former Jamaican Finance Minister among others.
Greenidge has also served as Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) a specialist institution of the European Union (EU) and the ACP, Chairman of Cooperative Financial Administration Board (COFA) (responsible for all banking and non-banking financial institutions), Governor for Guyana on IMF, IBRD, IADB, CDB and related MFI Boards of Governors, President of Board of Directors of Guyana State Enterprises (GUYSTAC) – Holding Company, Chief Planning Officer, and Secretary to the State Planning Board as well as Coordinator of Post-Graduate Teaching Programme in Economics and Research Coordinator: IRDC (Canada)/ University of the West Indies Public Enterprise Project among other key finance related positions.
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