BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves has defended the new attitude of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to developing countries even as he acknowledged he is still not fully satisfied with its lending policies.
Gonsalves, called in to the television programme “Time to Face the Facts” that was aired on the Barbados-based CARIBVISION, the television arm of the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Sunday night.
The programme hosted by the St Vincent-based journalist, Jerry George, looked at the role of the IMF in the Caribbean.
Gonsalves recalled that St Vincent and the Grenadines had benefitted from an US$6.4 million loan given by the Washington-based financial institution “especially in relation to balance of payments difficulties which arose out of consequence of the December 2013 natural disaster.
“The IMF of today is a somewhat different IMF than hitherto in terms of the manner in which it conducts its business and there is clearly an influence of new persons …but we still have somewhere to go,” he told television viewers.
He said the IMF “does not force any government to do something” and that Caribbean countries shortly after gaining political independence from Britain joined the IMF and other international institutions.