What we know up to this time about the troubling circumstances that now obtain at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is still very little, which is one of the reasons why the information which we have continues to be, unquestionably, troubling. The facts as we understand them are that the Bank’s President, Dr. Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon, had been suspended from his position since April 2023. Where the issue of facts is concerned, we are not ideally positioned to go any further.
If, however, the fact of Dr. Leon’s reported ‘suspension’ from office is, in itself, troubling, the fact that the information on the development appears to have been withheld from the people of the region for a protracted period is an altogether different matter. When the head of one the most important regional institutions charged with providing critical services to the Community ceases, temporarily or permanently, to perform the functions associated with the job, the people of the region have a right to know.
In other respects, too, the optics are unsightly. It appears that the decision to remove Dr. Leon from his Chair took place without the Directors not breathing a prior word, officially, that is, to the Governors of the Bank, or to the Heads of Govern-ment of the Caribbean Community. So where do we go from here? That the optics are, to say the least, unsightly, is a profound understatement. There are other no less unpalatable considerations to be taken on board here… like the fact that the Directors of the CDB took the decision that they did because whatever it was that brought on Dr. Leon being required not to be on the job – at least for the time being – was sufficiently serious for such action to be taken; and while one media report that part of the ‘trappings’ associated with Dr. Leon ceases (for now, at least) to serve in the capacity of the Bank’s CEO was that his Laptop and Cellular Phone have been taken off him cannot be confirmed by this newspaper, here again, we contend that the optics are more than a trifle unsightly.
The need for the CDB, on account of its importance to the well-being of the countries that it serves to move as quickly as possible beyond this point is hardly worth saying though it would appear that the ‘script’ of this unsightly ‘drama’ may take a while yet to be ‘played out.’
The ‘bottom line’ here is that what appears to have been a decision taken, seemingly, by the Directors of the CDB to conceal the ‘sending off’ of Dr. Leon without, seemingly, consulting with the Governors of the Bank or providing the Bank’s shareholders, the countries of the region, with some kind of public explanation for their action is understandable. It is, for the Heads of Government of the Community, to collectively and unambiguously notify the Bank’s Board of Directors that the ‘remo-val’ of the Bank’s CEO from office without, up to this time, notifying the people of the region of their action is altogether unacceptable. It need hardly be said that it is in the interest of the people of the region, as a whole, that the circumstances in which the CDB now finds itself be removed with considerable haste.
