Prime Minister Mia Mottley has reiterated that the Government has appointed the best advisors with respect to debt restructuring, namely White Oak Advisory Ltd.
The London-based independent financial advisory firm’s appointment has caused much discussion especially from the Leader of the Opposition Bishop Joseph Atherley.
In Parliament earlier this week, Atherley questioned the involvement of the firm as the country has defaulted on its debts. He demanded that the Mottley-led Government be transparent with their connections to the firm.
“We need to hear the bona fides of White Oak. We need to understand whether or not they are the subject of any transactional conflicts. We need to find out if White Oak has any local connections. It would be good if we knew who their principals are. We need to know what is the full extent of their involvement. Is it just that they are interfacing with our creditors on our behalf full stop, or is there further involvement?” asked Atherley.
In a statement issued to the press, the administration assured that the sovereign debt-restructuring agency, which has completed successful debt restructuring programmes in St Kitts, Grenada, Pakistan and Iceland, would be tackling the islands creditors in the coming weeks
“The financial advisor is in the process of establishing initial contacts with affected creditors, and is expected to soon commence creditor engagement on the basis of the medium-term macroeconomic projections to be finalized by the Government in the coming weeks,” the Mottley administration said in a statement.
Today, Prime Minister Mottley revealed that the Cabinet placed the advisory agency under the Financial Administration Management Act, to get “proper footing” as it relates to engaging with creditors.
“At the level of strict debt advisory we have hired in our view one of the best critique firms in the world,” she stressed.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is assuring the Barbadian public that the Barbados Labour Party Government has everything under control.
“Relax, we got this,” Mottley confidently said this afternoon.
Returning from discussions with Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, the Prime Minister, said that the Government’s objective was to “save our quality of life and to save the value of our dollar”.
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