BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Leaders of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) have expressed their “utter disappointment and shock” at the treatment being meted out to the embattled President of the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Dr Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon, who has been sent on administrative leave until April this year.
The leaders of the sub-regional grouping met virtually on Friday night to discuss the situation that involves “an ongoing administrative process” as announced by the region’s premier financial institution earlier this week.
Earlier this week, well placed sources told the CMC that Leon’s computer and tablet had been seized and that questions had been raised as to how the board of directors could have taken a decision against the bank’s president “without the knowledge of the board of Governors.
Another source told CMC on Saturday “it is a fact, the leaders on Friday night were very very disturbed at the action of the directors.
“In fact it is three directors….a sub-committee,” the source told CMC, without indicating who are the members of that sub-committee.
According to website of the CDB, the Board of Directors is responsible for the general policy and direction of the operations of CDB.
Leon is the sixth president of the regional development finance institution. He was elected at a special meeting of the CDB Board of Governors held on January 19, 2021 for a five-year term, and assumed office on May 4, 2021.
The highly regarded St. Lucian-born economist heads a team of more than 200 employees headquartered in Bridgetown, and came to the assignment with 35 years of experience in economics, financial policy development and executive management, more than 20 of which were spent working with the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF). He had succeeded the Jamaican-born Dr. Warren Smith who retired in 2021 after serving as president for 10 years.
Last Saturday, Leon was in Guyana holding talks with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chairman, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali and CARICOM Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett.
Meanwhile, the CDB announced late Friday that Leon would not now be part of the bank’s official team when they meet the regional media on February 20 for its annual news conference.
The news conference was originally scheduled for January 24 and Leon was among four officials who would have been outlining the plans for the financial institution for 2024.
But in its latest latest advisory, the CDB said the officials will be its Vice-President Operations, Isaac Solomon; Director, Economics Department, Ian Durant, and Director, Projects Department Mrs. Therese Turner Jones.
The Barbados-headquartered financial institution earlier this week said, in response to enquiries about whether the St Lucia-born economist and other bank officials had been sent on leave, that the “Caribbean Development Bank acknowledges an ongoing administrative process involving the President. The Bank will not be making any further comments on this internal matter at this time.”
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