Nadaleen Singh

Re­spond­ing to Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley's ques­tion­ing of his in­de­pen­dence as head of the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran says he will do his du­ty with­out tak­ing the side of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day af­ter a 45-minute meet­ing with re­tired gov­er­nor Ewart Williams and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai at the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Ram­bar­ran said: "The Cen­tral Bank is an au­tonomous in­sti­tu­tion with a very strong, op­er­a­tional in­de­pen­dence." Ram­bar­ran con­firmed he was giv­en a brief­ing at the meet­ing. His first of­fi­cial day in of­fice is to­day. Asked if he be­lieved he was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion ow­ing to his po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, he said: "As it is, the Cab­i­net has to make de­ci­sion and they made their de­ci­sion."

Re­spond­ing to de­trac­tors who say he is too young to han­dle the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of be­ing gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank, he said: "All I would want to say is, thank you to every­one for the com­ments. Thank you for the sup­port and ad­vice and I will take all in good stead." Though he has not yet made up his mind which de­part­ments of the Cen­tral Bank he would be meet­ing first, Ram­bar­ran said the is­sue was "pro­vid­ing the best lead­er­ship and sup­port to this coun­try in a tur­bu­lent en­vi­ron­ment." One of the is­sues dis­cussed at the meet­ing was the fi­nan­cial leg­isla­tive agen­da to be laid in Par­lia­ment when it re­sumes af­ter Au­gust 31. "He (Williams) has pro­vid­ed briefs on some of the is­sues and chal­lenges he would like the in­com­ing Gov­er­nor to be aware of," Ram­bar­ran said. He said he was not at lib­er­ty to dis­cuss some of the chal­lenges and is­sues with which he would have to treat.

With the 2012/2013 bud­get to be de­liv­ered in a few weeks, Ram­bar­ran said: "The Cen­tral Bank of T&T al­ways has an in­put in pro­vid­ing some ad­vice to the Gov­ern­ment in the bud­getary prepa­ra­tions." In wel­com­ing Ram­bar­ran yes­ter­day, Howai spoke of the need to syn­chro­nise fis­cal and mon­e­tary poli­cies for the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of the econ­o­my. "Whilst the Cen­tral Bank is an au­tonomous or­gan­i­sa­tion, it is on­ly by the two strong in­sti­tu­tions, the bank and the Gov­ern­ment, work­ing to­geth­er that the full po­ten­tial of our coun­try can be re­alised," read a state­ment from Howai's of­fice. Out­go­ing Gov­er­nor Williams met with Ram­bar­ran and Howai at the of­fice of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance yes­ter­day. Howai thanked Williams for his valu­able ser­vice and Williams ex­pressed his plea­sure at hav­ing been able to serve the coun­try.