Abdulah resigns as EDAB member

Three months after Dr Terrence Farrell resigned as chairman of the Cabinet-appointed Economic Development Advisory Board (EDAB), another member has followed suit.

David Abdulah on Thursday submitted his two-page letter of resignation to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley whom he said accepted it.

“As a result of not hearing about anything about the status of the board, whether there is going to be a new chairman or new members appointed or if it is going to be disbanded, I found that to be unacceptable,” Abdulah said.

The political leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) made the comments yesterday at a press conference held at the party’s headquarters at St Joseph Village, San Fernando. Abdulah recalled that since the appointment of the board in November 2015, two members namely Trevor Lynch and Dr Rolph Balgobin had resigned as well as the chairman.

After Farrell resigned, in early January, the work of the Board came to a halt.

It is his view, the establishment of the board reporting to the Prime Minister is a vital mechanism in the process of arriving at national economic policies. However, Abdulah said in the last four months, the board had not met. The last meeting was in early December and members have not heard from the Prime Minister nor Planning and Development Ministry, the line ministry. For this period, board members have been in limbo.

In his resignation letter, he said that good economic policies are never ever confined to the narrow areas of quantitative economics nor are they specific only to fiscal and monetary policies. The work of the EDAB must therefore also connect with social policies as well as matters relative to good governance, he added.