Former prime minister Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford. *Photo credit: www.gisbarbados.gov.bb

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Former prime minister Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford says Barbadians should not fear the island’s government approaching the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance.

“We make an error thinking that the IMF is necessarily a hostile organisation,” he told the Nation newspaper.

Sir Lloyd, who is preparing to take up the country’s first diplomatic posting in China in the New Year, noted that the IMF has resources and expertise that the Barbados government simply does not have.

“So we should always make use of the expertise of the IMF,” he said.

The former prime minister, who presided over the island’s affairs during the recession of the early 1990s, said there was no harm in seeking technical assistance from the Washington-based institution, while keeping access to its funds on the back-burner.

“It was the IMF that I worked closely with in trying to work out the solution for the Barbados economic crisis of the early 1990s. The World Bank was the one that was negative in terms of our situation at that time,” he said.

“You don’t go to them at the wrong time. We go to them when we need help. We go to the IMF as a last resort in terms of borrowing money.

“…it has other resources that can be helpful to monitor our situation and to give advice. If we have a clear perspective of where we are and where we may be heading, either statistically or in other ways, that can be helpful; and that is what I was always interested in,” Sir Lloyd added.

Although Prime Minister David Thompson has indicated that there will have to be cuts in government spending in the months ahead, he has refused to agree to most of the recommendations made by the IMF in its latest assessment of the Barbadian economy.