Former Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has expressed strong skepticism regarding the proposal to establish a Development Bank in St Vincent.
He characterizes the idea as ill-conceived and argues against it based on issues of capitalization, historical failure, and administrative redundancy.
Gonsalves challenges the financial foundation of the proposed bank, specifically asking, “what is going to be the capitalization development bank where the money coming from?”.
The former pm cited the failure of a previous “national development bank,” noting that it had to be closed when his administration came to office because “the bad debts are more than the actual capitalization,” rendering the institution “stillborn”.
Gonsalves argues that the specific functions often handled by such banks in the region are already being managed more efficiently in St. Vincent and pointed to development banks in Dominica and Grenada, noting that “most of the money which is loan is loan to student loans”.
The Opposition leader asserted that St. Vincent already utilizes a Student Loan Company for this purpose, which is “running it cheaper than a development bank”.
He dismisses the proposal as a sign that the current proponents “have an idea but they don’t check it out”