The Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go is with­out a sin­gle Deputy Gov­er­nor months af­ter Dr San­dra Sookram’s term came to an end—even though the law calls for up to two.

Since the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion came to pow­er in 2015, the gov­ern­ment and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert have failed to rec­om­mend to the Pres­i­dent any­one to be ap­point­ed as Deputy Gov­er­nor and the Bank has been op­er­at­ing for the last five years short of its com­pli­ment of Deputy Gov­er­nors.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the Cen­tral Bank have ex­pressed con­cern about the im­pli­ca­tions of not hav­ing a Deputy Gov­er­nor since in the past—apart from be­ing a mem­ber of the Board—one Deputy over­saw the im­por­tant re­search func­tion at the Bank while the oth­er dealt with op­er­a­tions, in­clu­sive of en­sur­ing the health of the fi­nan­cial sys­tem.

Sources in gov­ern­ment have al­so told SBG that a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant is tipped to be­come the Gov­er­nor at the end­ed of the year.

The Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian reached out the Cen­tral Bank and asked the fol­low­ing ques­tions.

1) How long has the Bank been with­out a deputy Gov­er­nor?

2) When are the two po­si­tions ex­pect­ed to be filled? What are the chal­lenges in fill­ing them?

3) Why was Mrs. Sookram’s con­tract not re­newed?

4) Who will act in the Gov­er­nor’s place should he not be avail­able or able to per­form his role?

The Cen­tral Bank did not di­rect­ly an­swer any of the ques­tions but in­stead sent the fol­low­ing re­spons­es.

“Dear Cur­tis by way of back­ground on the most re­cent Deputy Gov­er­nor ap­point­ments:

Dr San­dra Sookram was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion of Deputy Gov­er­nor by the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for a 5-year pe­ri­od from June 26, 2015 to June 25, 2020.

Ms Joan John was ap­point­ed as Deputy Gov­er­nor for the pe­ri­od Feb­ru­ary 1, 2010 to Jan­u­ary 31, 2015.

Dr Alvin Hi­laire was ap­point­ed as Deputy Gov­er­nor from April 1, 2013; his ap­point­ment as Deputy Gov­er­nor was re­voked when he as­sumed the po­si­tion of Gov­er­nor from De­cem­ber 23, 2015 for a term that ends on De­cem­ber 22, 2020.”

It added: “In terms of the ap­point­ment, terms of ser­vice and tenure of the of­fice of Deputy Gov­er­nor, the Cen­tral Bank Act, Chap.79:02 spec­i­fies the fol­low­ing:.

Sec­tion 5 states that the Bank shall be man­aged by a Board of Di­rec­tors com­prised of a Gov­er­nor, not more than two Deputy Gov­er­nors and not less than six oth­er di­rec­tors, two of whom may be pub­lic ser­vice di­rec­tors.

Sec­tion 7(1-3) state that:

(1) The Gov­er­nor, Deputy Gov­er­nors and the oth­er di­rec­tors shall be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent by in­stru­ment in writ­ing.

(2) The Gov­er­nor shall be ap­point­ed for a terms of five years.

(3) The term of of­fice of a Deputy Gov­er­nor shall be for such pe­ri­od as the Pres­i­dent may fix in the in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment.

Sec­tion 8 (1) states that the Gov­er­nor and Deputy Gov­er­nors shall be men of proven fi­nan­cial ex­pe­ri­ence and each shall de­vote the whole of his time to the ser­vice of the bank and while hold­ing of­fice shall not oc­cu­py any oth­er of­fice of em­ploy­ment whether re­mu­ner­at­ed or not.”

It is un­clear if Dr Sookram, who was ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the UNC Cab­i­net and then Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Lar­ry Howai, did not choose to re­turn or was not of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty by the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The Deputy Gov­er­nor plays a cru­cial role in the run­ning of the Cen­tral Bank with sec­tion 6 (1) of the Cen­tral Bank Act in­di­cat­ing that the seal of the Bank shall be kept in the cus­tody of the Gov­er­nor or a Deputy Gov­er­nor and shall be au­then­ti­cat­ed by the Gov­er­nor or a Deputy Gov­er­nor and a di­rec­tor au­tho­rised by the Board to act in that be­half.

It adds that all doc­u­ments, oth­er than those re­quired by law to be un­der seal, made by, and all de­ci­sions of, the Board may be sig­ni­fied un­der the hand of the Gov­er­nor or a Deputy Gov­er­nor.

For­mer Deputy Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank and econ­o­mist Dr Ter­rence Far­rel told SBG that he is wor­ried about the Bank and what he sees as the con­tin­ued di­min­ish­ing of its role and in­de­pen­dence.

“It is a mat­ter of some con­sid­er­able con­cern. The Cen­tral Bank ought to be a crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion in the whole set-up for eco­nom­ic man­age­ment—play­ing a crit­i­cal role. It seems to me over the last five years that role has di­min­ished in the eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy man­age­ment of the coun­try.

Far­rell said he was sur­prised that the gov­ern­ment set up its Roadmap to Re­cov­ery com­mit­tee and there was no one from the Cen­tral Bank ap­point­ed.

He said: “Imag­ine we are chart­ing the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try and I thought that it was odd but con­sis­tent with what we have been see­ing, an over­rid­ing re­duc­tion of the role of the Bank in the last five years.”

The for­mer Deputy Gov­er­nor added: It is not as if some­thing else has re­placed it. So now have a sit­u­a­tion where you haven’t had a Deputy for the last five years and one demit­ted of­fice or term end­ed and not re­placed, and an in­spec­tor of fi­nan­cial ser­vices act­ing for a long time. For an in­sti­tu­tion to be in charge of the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, it too has to be sta­ble and has to have a cadre of com­mit­ted, com­pe­tent peo­ple, who are tasked with mov­ing the pol­i­cy agen­da for­ward.”

Far­rell again said he was very con­cerned that the Cen­tral Bank “seems to be no longer be an in­de­pen­dent voice ar­tic­u­lat­ing on macro-eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and broad­ly on eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy.”

He said with the col­lapse of the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice the Cen­tral Bank is not on­ly the repos­i­to­ry of a lot of knowl­edge but has a cock­pit view of all that is hap­pen­ing in the econ­o­my.

The For­mer Deputy Gov­er­nor said the Bank has lost its voice.

“It has be­come silent and I find it dis­turb­ing in a lot of ways and in oth­er coun­tries you hear the fed chair­man and cen­tral bank gov­er­nors speak­ing and peo­ple look for a clear in­de­pen­dent view as to what is hap­pen­ing in the econ­o­my, par­tic­u­lar­ly in terms of what is hap­pen­ing in mon­e­tary and fi­nan­cial mar­kets. The Bank’s voice is miss­ing and all we hear is gov­ern­ment min­is­ters speak­ing,” Far­rell ar­tic­u­lat­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the act, in the event of ab­sence or in­abil­i­ty of the Gov­er­nor from what­ev­er cause aris­ing, the Board may ap­point a Deputy Gov­er­nor to ex­er­cise the pow­ers and func­tions of the Gov­er­nor.