CARIBBEAN-Former Montserrat premier voices concerns over the decision to send CDB president on administrative leave

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC—Former Montserrat premier Reuben Meade said Monday he found it “rather interesting” that a subordinate body within the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) had been able to send the financial institution’s president on administrative leave.

“It is like the tail wagging the dog. It is like fleas controlling the dog,” said Meade, who before his stint as the premier between 2010-14, had served as an economist with the CDB. Listen to audio

In January, it was disclosed that Dr Hyginus’ Gene’ Leon had been sent on administrative leave until April this year as “an ongoing administrative process” continues at the region’s premier financial institution.

The CDB has remained mum on the circumstances surrounding the decision to send the St. Lucian-born economist on administrative leave. The acting president, Isaac Solomon, confirmed at a bank news conference in February that “there is an internal administrative process involving the president.

“The bank is extremely focused on preserving the independence, confidentiality, and integrity of the process, and as you can well appreciate, for us to maintain this integrity, we cannot provide any other details at this time,” Solomon said.

In February, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who was attending the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit in Guyana, said concerns had been raised about the method used to send Leon on administrative leave.

“..at some point, we will have to address the issue of the procedures and the fact that subordinates within an institution can take disciplinary action against their superior without even consulting with the bank’s directors or governors”.
Meade, speaking on a program on Radio Anguilla on Monday, told listeners that there is no authority “below that of the Board of Governors who can determine the president’s employment.

“Whatever the staff rules are, they do not apply to the bank president. The president reports directly to the Board of governors. So, a subordinate body within the bank can send the president on leave.

Meade said it is surprising that the CDB governors and “especially the borrowing members, who are the English-speaking Caribbean, have not lent their voice in support or asked for an explanation.

“Now let’s say that through their whistle-blower policy within the bank, they realize that the president was doing something contrary, and then that should have gone to the Board of Directors, who in turn should have informed the governors.

“So when the governors are asking what is it that the president has done wrong…and they are saying butt out of this, it is of no concern of yours, then clearly something is wrong,” Meade said, adding, “and this is one of the reasons I am calling on the governors, especially the Caribbean governors and they must take the lead in this thing, and call an emergency meeting of the board of governors.”

Meade said that the meeting could be conducted virtually to get to the bottom of this because, for one institution like the Caribbean Development Bank, the recent developments would have caused significant reputational damage to the bank, and that must be a concern to all of us. ‘

Leon is the sixth president of the regional development finance institution. He was elected at a special CDB Board of Governors meeting held on January 19, 2021, for a five-year term and assumed office on May 4, 2021.

Leon heads a team of more than 200 employees headquartered in Bridgetown. He 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 succeeded the Jamaican-born Dr. Warren Smith, who retired in 2021 after serving as president for ten years.

Meade told radio listeners that while he did not “want to touch on the reputational damage “to the CDB president, “I would suspect that his lawyers will be dealing with that from a legal standpoint.

“Because the bank can find itself open to a serious lawsuit regarding his reputational damage.”

Informed sources told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the leaders of the sub-regional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) grouping had written, through their chairman, Dr Terrence Drew, the Prime Minister of St Kitts-Nevis, a letter on January 22, 2024, to the current chairman of the Board of Governors, Ahmed Hussen, the Canadian Minister of International Development, on the issue.

The sources said that the OECS leaders raised issues and concerns following the actions taken by the Oversight and Assurance Committee (OAC) of the Board of Directors, noting specifically that the OAC was an Advisory committee of the Board, according to section 2 of the OAC Revised Terms of Reference.

The OECS leaders also pointed out in their letter that section 12 –subsections 12.01 and 12.02 (referencing the Code of Conduct of the Board of Directors) limits the role of the OAC in making recommendations to the Board of Directors.

The OECS leaders are reported to have requested an urgent closed-door meeting of the Board of Governors to, among other things, “prevent further hemorrhaging of the reputations of the Bank and the individuals involved.”

However, the sources said that the letter was met with a terse response not from the Canadian finance minister but from a Washington, D.C. law firm—Arnold and Porter—on February 1, 2024.

The Bank’s U.S. lawyers wrote, in part, “This is an internal bank matter and is not within the jurisdiction of the OECS Commission. Therefore, to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of the investigation, we recommend you (OECS Heads) cease commenting on this matter publicly and contact the Board of Governors regarding the Investigations.”

Meade told Radio Anguilla that the issue is whether Prime Minister Drew wrote to the CDB chairman as the head of government or as a governor.

“I am no legal expert, but I think he should have written to the chairman on behalf of the governors from the OECS state rather than as a prime minister of the OECS states. There is a subtle difference between the two,” Meade said.

“So I think the need now is to go back to the chair indicating that we, the governors of the Caribbean Development Bank, and you name the governors, at this moment request X, Y, and Z.”

Meade said that a letter from a law firm out of Washington “is utterly disrespectful of the positions of prime ministers of the region. It is utterly disrespectful, and I think Dr. Drew needs to get back to the chairman of the Board of Governors and list the names of the governors. Not as members of the OECS, but we, the governors X, Y, and Z, now request the meeting”.”

Meade said that while he would not want to identify any particular Caribbean leader, given that all of them are governors of the bank, “I expect that the President of Guyana, who is the current chair of CARICOM, should be sending a letter on behalf of the governors of the CARICOM countries to the chairman of the Board of governors indicating we want to have an urgent meeting and we are calling on you to have this meeting.

“Furthermore, they know the various governors from the U.K. and the other non-borrowing states. They should also pen that letter or copy that letter to them requesting an urgent meeting with them to deal with that matter,” Meade told radio listeners.