Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar says the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) and G20 states must con­sult small states be­fore tak­ing de­ci­sions which could ad­verse­ly af­fect small­er na­tions of the world. Ad­dress­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York yes­ter­day morn­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said such arrange­ments could lead to a po­ten­tial con­tra­ven­tion of nat­ur­al jus­tice. She said sev­er­al im­per­a­tives for glob­al eco­nom­ic gov­er­nance must be im­ple­ment­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there must be "changes in the in­ter­na­tion­al ar­chi­tec­ture in which the IMF and G20 (meet) lend them­selves to a po­ten­tial con­tra­ven­tion of nat­ur­al jus­tice where clubs of large coun­tries sit and de­vel­op rules for small­er states to fol­low with­out ad­e­quate con­sul­ta­tions, con­sid­er­a­tions and en­gage­ment with those small states."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her 13- minute speech, said the de­vel­op­ment of in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tions, su­per­vi­sion risk man­age­ment and as­sess­ment of fi­nan­cial sec­tors "do not sup­port a lev­el play­ing field be­tween large and small states." The PM al­so not­ed that "the pref­er­en­tial treat­ment giv­en to ar­eas im­por­tant in some large states for mort­gages and re­gion­al bands to hy­brid cap­i­tal al­so pe­nalis­es in­sti­tu­tions and small states be­yond eco­nom­ic jus­ti­fi­ca­tion."

She said the cri­te­ria for lend­ing used by the mul­ti-lat­er­al lend­ing agen­cies was bet­ter suit­ed for larg­er states. "The cri­te­ria used for longterm and short-term sup­port pays too much at­ten­tion to the lev­el of GDP per capi­ta and not suf­fi­cient­ly enough to the much high­er lev­els of fragili­ty and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to nat­ur­al and eco­nom­ic shocks." Per­sad- Bisses­sar added. She called on the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the IMF and the pres­i­dent of the World Bank "to in­ten­si­fy its at­ten­tion on the is­sues of small and vul­ner­a­ble economies."

She in­sist­ed the re­form of glob­al eco­nom­ic gov­er­nance must the grow­ing role of emerg­ing mar­ket de­vel­op­ing coun­tries while en­hanc­ing the voice and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of all small, low and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries. She said the safe­guards to re­duce the im­pact of glob­al eco­nom­ic shocks in the Cari­com re­gion were in­ad­e­quate to re­solve the prob­lems in my re­gion and oth­ers with small economies.

"The old ap­proach to do­ing things is not work­ing," she in­sist­ed. It was for this rea­son that Trinidad and To­ba­go had tak­en the ini­tia­tive to start a con­ver­sa­tion with­in the gov­er­nance of In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund to en­sure that small economies were giv­en a po­lit­i­cal pres­ence in the de­lib­er­a­tions of such bod­ies, she added. She said T&T and the en­tire Cari­com would like for there to be "greater di­a­logue with the G20 and the mul­ti-na­tion­al lend­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to give greater at­ten­tion to is­sues fac­ing small and vul­ner­a­ble states."

She said the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly "must not be silent on this mat­ter be­cause the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic crises dic­tate the need for a glob­al gov­er­nance struc­ture which takes in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the unique cir­cum­stances of small states."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said some of the de­ci­sions adopt­ed by or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the OECD have far­reach­ing con­se­quences on the eco­nom­ic and so­cial wel­fare of de­vel­op­ing coun­tries. The PM said the OECD's ini­tia­tive to put coun­tries on grey lists and black­lists were "hav­ing se­vere im­pli­ca­tions for some of our Caribbean coun­tries. "