Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter two years of serv­ing as the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), Robert Le Hunte is look­ing for his next op­por­tu­ni­ty to be of ser­vice.

Le Hunte, a ca­reer banker who served as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties in the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion from Sep­tem­ber 2017 un­til his res­ig­na­tion in May 2020, end­ed his term at the IDB on June 30.

The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor role is ro­tat­ed among the mem­ber coun­tries of the IDB.

Asked whether he would re­sume ac­tive pol­i­tics, he re­vealed that he is still a mem­ber of the PNM and has main­tained good re­la­tion­ships with sev­er­al of his for­mer col­leagues.

“I am not averse to serv­ing. My goal is about serv­ing the peo­ple as long as an op­por­tu­ni­ty presents it­self,” he told the Sun­day Guardian in a tele­phone call yes­ter­day.

“I am a life­time mem­ber of the PNM par­ty. Rest as­sured, as my past de­ci­sions and choic­es have shown, it has nev­er and will nev­er be about mon­ey or po­si­tion. In my fu­ture en­deav­ours, I con­tin­ue to be com­mit­ted to serv­ing my coun­try and the re­gion.

“I have al­ways aimed to ex­e­cute my tasks with in­tegri­ty, pas­sion, and com­mit­ment, en­sur­ing that I aim to leave each po­si­tion a lit­tle bet­ter than I found it.”

While re­flect­ing on his time at the IDB and the chal­lenges the coun­try and the re­gion face, Le Hunte point­ed out that the num­ber one is­sue is cli­mate change.

He not­ed that in the Caribbean, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters oc­cur more fre­quent­ly and cost more on av­er­age than any­where else in the world.

“Since 1950, rough­ly two-thirds of the dis­as­ters to hit small coun­tries have oc­curred in the Caribbean. En­tire economies have faced loss­es larg­er than their en­tire GDP. Do­mini­ca lost 226 per cent of its GDP to Hur­ri­cane Maria in 2017, and Grena­da lost 200 per cent of its GDP to Hur­ri­cane Ivan in 2004. Hur­ri­cane Do­ri­an caused dam­ages equiv­a­lent to one-quar­ter of the Ba­hamas’ GDP,” he said.

The re­gion’s sur­vival de­pends on the strength and ef­fi­ca­cy of adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures which means in­vest­ing in re­silient in­fra­struc­ture. What­ev­er we now build, what­ev­er ini­tia­tives or projects we move for­ward with, needs to with­stand the im­pacts of cur­rent and fu­ture cli­mate change im­pacts. Ac­cess to long-term, af­ford­able fi­nanc­ing to meet these needs con­tin­ues to be a chal­lenge in the re­gion, that de­mands col­lec­tive res­o­lu­tion,” he said.

De­spite the chal­lenges, there are op­por­tu­ni­ties in the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly in green hy­dro­gen.

“The Caribbean could aim to be­come a green hy­dro­gen-in­de­pen­dent re­gion. Re­al­is­ing this po­ten­tial de­pends on our abil­i­ty to come to­geth­er, think big, and pur­sue trans­for­ma­tion­al ini­tia­tives. Sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in in­fra­struc­ture are re­quired, but there are in­vestors will­ing to in­vest. To cap­i­talise on these op­por­tu­ni­ties, we must ad­dress chal­lenges re­lat­ed to ease of do­ing busi­ness, reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works, and more.

“Pri­ori­tis­ing eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is es­sen­tial for long-term re­silience and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. The glob­al shift to­wards green hy­dro­gen presents a sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ty. Hy­dro­gen de­mand by 2050 could vary from 150 to 500 mil­lion met­ric tonnes per year. The Caribbean is well-po­si­tioned to har­ness this po­ten­tial and be a key play­er in the glob­al green hy­dro­gen mar­ket,” he said.

“I want to em­pha­sise that this is not a ze­ro-sum game. Nat­ur­al gas will con­tin­ue to be a crit­i­cal el­e­ment in the world’s en­er­gy mix. How­ev­er, we have the po­ten­tial to en­vi­sion a Caribbean that is in­de­pen­dent in green hy­dro­gen.”

Le Hunte said the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) needs to be strength­ened to bet­ter serve the re­gion’s needs.

He said the CDB’s triple-A rat­ing is a valu­able as­set that can be bet­ter utilised to se­cure cheap­er fi­nanc­ing for de­vel­op­ment projects.

“By is­su­ing bonds on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket, the CDB can raise funds at low­er in­ter­est rates, which can then be chan­nelled in­to crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture and re­silience-build­ing projects across the Caribbean,” he said.

In his view, the Caribbean has not been re­ceiv­ing its fair share of pri­vate-sec­tor in­vest­ment.

“The Gov­ern­ment can­not do it alone. The es­ca­lat­ing debt lev­els and lim­it­ed fis­cal space leave lit­tle room for ad­di­tion­al bor­row­ing to ad­dress our myr­i­ad de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges.

“It is ev­i­dent that these bur­dens can­not be borne by gov­ern­ment spend­ing and bor­row­ing alone. We need the ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of the pri­vate sec­tor, fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, and in­vestors,” he said.