A Government senator has charged that the pace of fiscal restructuring requested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is unreasonable.
This suggestion from Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for finance Senator Darcy Boyce came yesterday even as a representative of the fund’s regional resource centre called for intensified fiscal consolidation.
Boyce directed his concerns to the Caribbean Technical Assistance Centre’s (CARTAC) programme coordinator Dr Arnold McIntyre and Standard & Poor’s country analyst for Barbados, Olga Kalinina, yesterday at Hilton Barbados during a panel discussion hosted by RBC Royal Bank to discuss the region’s economic outlook for this year.
He suggested that five to seven years was a realistic time period for the Government to resolve its fiscal problems and adequately restructure and develop the economy without “jolting” it.
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