Howard: Proposal to axe 4 500 insensitive

Article by TS

Political insensitivity. That’s how economist Professor Michael Howard has described the proposal of former Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell for an immediate restructuring of the Barbados economy.

“I have not read Worrell’s 36-page document but his proposal in the months before a national election calls for an immediate implementation of a strategy to retrench 4 500 civil servants. This proposal shows a level of social and political insensitivity and incorrectness which I have not seen before from a Barbadian economist,” Howard said yesterday.

Worrell had also suggested that retrenched civil servants would get over $270 million in separation packages funded by international financial institutions.

But Howard, a retired senior lecturer at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) dismissed the idea. (TS)

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