Sinckler’s new role

by TONY BEST FORMER MINISTER OF FINANCE Chris Sinckler is heading to Washington as one of the World Bank’s top decision-makers, representing several Englishspeaking Caribbean island nations and coastal states.

He is joining one of the world’s best known financial and development institutions as the alternate executive director for Barbados, Belize, Antigua, Grenada, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Guyana, St Kitts-Nevis, Dominica, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. A Canadian currently serves as executive director for Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean. Sinckler will be his deputy or alternate.

“The former Barbados cabinet minister will be representing a number of our countries on the bank’s executive board as the alternate. We have endorsed his appointment,” said a diplomatic source in Washington who is familiar with Sinckler’s nomination but who was not authorised to speak about it.

It is understood that Sinckler was first nominated for the job by the Mia Amor Mottley Administration which gained the support of the countries he will represent.

Winston Cox, a senior Caribbean and European trained economist, who once sat in the seat Sinckler is set to occupy in a matter of weeks, endorsed the appointment, saying the former minister for almost a decade until 2018 could be expected to “work hard” and to demonstrate an extensive knowledge of the challenges the CARICOM region faced at this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and rising inflation.

“People of the Caribbean can expect from Sinckler a high level of familiarity with the issues that Caribbean governments face in their dealings with the World Bank because as a former Minister of Finance in Barbados he would also have served in the capacity as a Governor for Barbados of the World Bank,” said Cox, a senior Caribbean and European trained economist who served as the alternate executive director from 1994-97 and later became an executive director of the Inter-American Development Bank.

“He should be quite familiar with the policies of the bank and with the needs of the Caribbean governments in their interactions with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank itself.”

Reached at his home in Quebec, Cox said that Sinckler should already be familiar with the financial institution’s culture and therefore the “learning curve” wouldn’t be as steep as otherwise would have been the case if he hadn’t been on the bank’s board of governors.

“He will be able to put the case for the Government of Barbados and for all of the English-speaking Caribbean countries except Trinidad and Tobago,” said Cox. “He must first put the case to the (Canadian) executive director whose support he will need and secondly to the World Bank officials in the Latin American and Caribbean division.”

Cox added that Sinckler’s principal function would be to put the case to the executive director (for the region) to support the needs of the Caribbean constituents in the Bank.

“For instance, in the event that there is a devastating hurricane in the Caribbean, these are not things the Canadian or Irish executive director are familiar with and Sinckler’s job is going to be to make the case for special assistance the Caribbean countries would need,” said Cox.

FORMER MINISTER OF FINANCE Chris

Sinckler. (FP)