Up to this point in time, the ‘average Joe’ in the Caribbean is probably ‘none the wiser’ as to the real reason(s) behind the unexpected tumult within the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) triggered by what had been described as the suspension of the St. Lucian, Dr Hyginus Leon as President of the Caribbean Development Bank, never mind the fact that the energetic ‘follow up’ to removal of Dr. Leon from his position dropped some decidedly fuzzy though not altogether opaque purported reasons for asking him to stand aside (rather than stand down) for an interregnum that always seemed likely to be protracted.
The first thing that should be said here is that whatever the circumstances that removed Dr Leon from his desk, it was clear that handling the matter in a way that was honest and transparent was, for one reason or another, seemingly beyond the CDB itself. Here one of the questions that arises is whether a circumstance as serious as the call for Dr Leon to step aside for an unspecified period, did not require the immediate involvement of the CARICOM machinery, that is to say the Chair of the regional movement and the other country Heads which, presumably, would have opened up a pathway to a more measured handling of the matter, whatever it was. However, what appeared to occur was that the Bank itself appeared to be caught up in its own ‘tangle’.
What clearly did not make things better was that the region, as a whole, was simply left, for a considerable period, in a kind of ‘no clue’ zone, a condition that would have left member countries and institutions in a considerable ‘tizzy’, given the critical importance of the Bank to their respective overall governance regimes.
The fact that there appeared to be a complete absence of reliable sources through which the people of the region could be brought ‘into the loop’ insofar as the reason for the CDB President’s removal is concerned, is, in truth, the most recent manifestation of the low esteem in which the people of the region are held by their political leaders. For this, unquestionably, it is the Heads of Government of the region that must ‘carry the can’.
As it happens the ‘culture’ of information dissemination in the Caribbean tends, at the more exalted levels, to thrive on a ‘policy’ of ‘sealed lips’ and it was this that disallowed for what one might call ‘full disclosure’. An earlier and still prevailing example of our CARICOM Heads playing their proverbial cards close to their chests, reposes in the fact that after many months have gone by we are unable to get an update out of either President Ali or Prime Minister Mottley on the promised Food Security Terminal.
To return to the matter of the CDB and its now former president, even discreet and mindfully structured official disclosures would surely have been preferable to saying nothing. That option, too, would appear to have been set aside for a wall of silence.
Inevitably, it became clear that the matter of Dr Leon being asked to ‘stand down’ temporarily was unlikely to terminate, in the fullness of time, with an honest disclosure to the people of the Caribbean in order to sate curiosity and douse unhealthy speculation.
It was Dr Leon himself who brought about the region-wide inhalation on Sunday April 21, through a letter of resignation from the presidency of the Bank “with immediate effect” accompanied by what can only be described as a threat to sue the institution if his deadline of May 4 “to negotiate an amicable separation” is not met. From Dr Leon’s perspective, reportedly, the CDB had been in the process of “conducting an investigation (of him) that was unconventional, did not follow due process, and was beset with “grave procedural irregularities.” This, to say the least, is a decidedly distasteful thing to be said about the CDB by its former president.
Leaving everything else aside, the optics of the situation are, seemingly, becoming decidedly unsightly.