by TONY BEST

THE UNITED NATIONS (UN) ESTIMATE of $226 million in remittances sent to Barbados by nationals abroad is a believable amount of money.

As a matter of fact, Dr Christopher Hackett, Barbados' UN Ambassador, said he accepted it as a reflection of "reality".

Asked about the surprisingly large sum of hard currency, US$113 million, which the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimated flowed into Barbados in 2004, Hackett, a former senior professional in the department, said he believed the figure was right on the money. The UN, he explained, went to considerable lengths to collect accurate data on migration in time for the recent high level Dialogue on Migration and Development held at UN headquarters in New York.

"Yes, you could feel comfortable using the figure because I know that aggressive efforts were made by the UN Secretariat and that of the International Organisation on Migration to really get data as they were preparing for the High Level Dialogue," Hackett told the DAILY NATION. "I think there is good reason to believe that the figures are a good indication of reality. Precisely what would have the source etcetera, that I can't tell you because I don't know. But I accept the figures as real."

According to the UN, remittances to Barbados in 2004 accounted for four per cent of the nation's gross domestic product. That was much more than the country had earned in hard currency from its exports of manufactured goods and agricultural products.

The UN estimate was the largest known amount of remittances ever calculated for Barbados by a global body. For instance, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which tracks remittances every year in Latin America and the Caribbean, has consistently omitted Barbados from its list of receiving countries.

Like the IDB, the UN listed Jamaica as the largest recipient of remittances in CARICOM with US$1.3 billion and Haiti second in line with almost US$900 million. However, in 2004, the IDB's estimates were much higher than the UN's figures in almost every case. For example, in Jamaica's case the UN figure was about US$200 million less than the IDB's and Haiti's was more than $100 million less than the bank's total.

The IDB's figures for Guyana, Belize and Trinidad and Tobago were also much higher than the UN's, fuelling speculation that the actual amount of remittances sent to Barbados might have been higher than the world body's estimate.

Sir Courtney Blackman, who once headed the Barbados Central Bank and later became Ambassador in Washington, described the UN figure for Barbados as being "credible".