Hilaire to head Central Bank for three more years

CENTRAL Bank Governor Dr Alvin Hilaire has been given a three-year extension in his post, Finance Minister Colm Imbert told a virtual briefing on Friday.

Cabinet has also agreed to the appointment of the first of three individuals as deputy governors, Dr Dorian Noel, a lecturer at the Department of Government at UWI, St Augustine.

Imbert said Cabinet will fill the two other deputy posts, possibly recruiting staff from the likes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

He said he was also using the occasion to apologise to Vishnu Dhanpaul on behalf of those voices that had alleged he was favoured to be governor. Dhanpaul is permanent secretary in the ministry.

Asked by Newsday about someone now acting as Inspector of Financial Institutions, Imbert promised a permanent appointee “very shortly.”

Imbert justified the provision in the Finance Bill 2020 to change the governor’s term from five years to a period of three -five years, saying governors are usually appointed in their senior years, and some may simply not want to serve for a whole five years.

Taking issue with another newspaper’s editorial’s suggestion that the terms of governments and Central Bank governors should coincide, Imbert traced at length the terms of past governors and the corresponding governments alongside whom they had served. He said the terms of seven governments and eight governors had not matched the editorial’s claim.

Opposition Senator Wade Mark in reaction told Newsday the Opposition had “foiled a plot” by the PNM to appoint someone as governor with little or no track record in central banking, but whom Mark thought was too close to the Ministry of Finance.