Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) lead­ers have ex­pressed their “im­mense con­cern” at the un­fold­ing sit­u­a­tion at the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB), where the pres­i­dent of the re­gion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, Dr Hy­gi­nus “Gene” Leon, has been on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave since Jan­u­ary.

Speak­ing at the news con­fer­ence late Wednes­day fol­low­ing the four-day Cari­com sum­mit, Cari­com chair­man Dr Ir­faan Ali, told re­porters that this “was a mat­ter that was dealt with by heads,” but would not elab­o­rate.

“This is a re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tion and of course when a re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tion is go­ing through any trau­ma or any sit­u­a­tion it is of con­cern for the heads,” said Ali, who is al­so Guyana’s pres­i­dent.

“This is of im­mense con­cern for the heads be­cause at the end of the day our pri­or­i­ty is on the in­sti­tu­tion,en­sur­ing that the in­sti­tu­tion re­mains strong, sta­ble and the cred­i­ble na­ture of the in­sti­tu­tion is kept in­tact,” he added.

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

“The bank is ex­treme­ly fo­cussed on pre­serv­ing the in­de­pen­dence, con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and in­tegri­ty of the process and as you can well ap­pre­ci­ate in or­der for us to main­tain the in­tegri­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of the process we are un­able to pro­vide any oth­er de­tails at this time,” Solomon said then.

Ali told re­porters that the re­gion­al lead­ers want to be “as­sured that in a pro­ce­dur­al way that rules and pro­ce­dures are fol­lowed in what ever we do in the bank”.

He said whilst the re­gion­al lead­ers would not in­ter­vene in the gov­er­nance struc­ture or gov­er­nance mech­a­nisms of the bank, “heads were of the view that the board of di­rec­tors and gov­er­nors have cer­tain re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and that cer­tain re­gards must be af­ford­ed to the board of di­rec­tors and the gov­er­nors in deal­ing with is­sues of the bank

“I don’t want to go deep­er be­cause this is an on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion that we do not want to prej­u­dice or we do not want to im­pute or we don’t want to be ac­cused of any­thing … so I would leave that there, but I want to say that of course this was a mat­ter that was dealt with by heads,” Ali told re­porters.

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.

Leon 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 ten years.

Ear­li­er, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne said con­cerns had been raised about the method used to send Leon on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave. (CMC)