Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar opt­ed for youth as her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Cab­i­net yes­ter­day chose 45-year-old fi­nan­cial econ­o­mist Jwala Ram­bar­ran as the new Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go. She an­nounced the de­ci­sion, af­ter two days of de­lib­er­a­tions, dur­ing a news brief­ing fol­low­ing the spe­cial Cab­i­net meet­ing at Co­co Reef Ho­tel, To­ba­go, yes­ter­day.

Ram­bar­ran re­places Ewart Williams, who demits of­fice on Mon­day. Williams served two five-year terms as head of the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion. The T&T Guardian was told yes­ter­day that ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Bar­ba­dos-based CIBC First Caribbean, Michael Man­soor, with­drew from list of can­di­dates which al­so in­clud­ed for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies se­nior lec­tur­er in eco­nom­ics Dr Dhanayshar Ma­habir and chair­man of the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion, econ­o­mist Dr Patrick Wat­son.

There was sus­tained ap­plause from Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and oth­ers at the con­fer­ence room of the ho­tel yes­ter­day af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "The Cab­i­net has made a de­ci­sion to ap­point Mr Jwala Ram­bar­ran, fi­nan­cial econ­o­mist, as the Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go." Ram­ber­ran said he was hap­py to be ap­point­ed to the post.

"Thank God, thank the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net for choos­ing me to be the next Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor. The in­ten­tion is to build on the work that was done by Gov­er­nor Williams as we seek to strength­en mon­e­tary and fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go," Ram­ber­ran said yes­ter­day af­ter his ap­point­ment was an­nounced

Ram­bar­ran will first meet with the out­go­ing gov­er­nor, af­ter which he will get down to busi­ness. He said giv­en his knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, he will work in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. "I have worked in the Cen­tral Bank pre­vi­ous­ly. I have rep­re­sent­ed the Gov­ern­ment at the IMF. So I have a pret­ty strong un­der­stand­ing of how the T&T econ­o­my op­er­ates and how the fi­nan­cial sec­tor has to con­tribute to eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment," he said.

The PM al­so said she was ad­vised that Ram­bar­ran had "sound lead­er­ship, ne­go­ti­a­tion and strate­gic plan­ning skills and is al­so a grad­u­ate of ex­ec­u­tive eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial train­ing pro­grammes from Har­vard Kennedy School of Gov­ern­ment, from the IMF In­sti­tute and the Fed­er­al Re­serve Bank of New York." Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that Ram­bar­ran had work ex­pe­ri­ence at the Cen­tral Bank of T&T and with the IMF.

She said he al­so had "some knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence with re­spect to debt resched­ul­ing with the Paris Club." She said on­ly one is­sue was cause for some con­sid­er­a­tion in mak­ing the ap­point­ment-his age. "But the Cab­i­net was of the view that age should not be a bar to the per­for­mance of func­tions and du­ties," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said it was her Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Prakash Ra­mad­har, who told the Cab­i­net that in the large coun­tries of the world fi­nan­cial sys­tems were col­laps­ing with the old­er and more ex­pe­ri­enced cen­tral bank gov­er­nors. The PM said giv­en the glob­al dy­nam­ics, "we need a breath of fresh air, new think­ing and the dy­namism, which we be­lieve Mr Ram­bar­ran can bring in these very chal­leng­ing times."

Mean­while, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai ex­tend­ed his full sup­port for the choice of Ram­bar­ran as the new Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor. Howai said at the Cab­i­net brief­ing yes­ter­day that the lengthy process was quite ap­pro­pri­ate to en­sure the best can­di­date was se­lect­ed by the Cab­i­net. The for­mer banker thanked Williams for his con­tri­bu­tion as Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor over the past ten years.

He said he looked for­ward to Ram­bar­ran play­ing a crit­i­cal role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the growth and de­vel­op­ment process in T&T. He said Ram­bar­ran was ex­pect­ed to en­sure the in­de­pen­dence of the Cen­tral Bank and al­so play a crit­i­cal role "in as­sist­ing in the de­vel­op­ment and growth of the na­tion­al econ­o­my."