The Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) Sun­day con­firmed that it had con­clud­ed the “in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tive process” in­volv­ing its pres­i­dent, Dr. Hy­gi­nus Leon and that he “has ceased to hold the of­fice of the Pres­i­dent of the Bank”.

In a four-para­graph state­ment, the CDB said that its board of gov­er­nors had tak­en note of the “clo­sure of the in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tive process” in­volv­ing the St. Lu­cian-born econ­o­mist and that “in ac­cor­dance with the Agree­ment Es­tab­lish­ing the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, the Vice Pres­i­dent (Op­er­a­tions), Mr. Isaac Solomon, will con­tin­ue to ex­er­cise the au­thor­i­ty and per­form the func­tions of Pres­i­dent un­til a new Pres­i­dent is elect­ed”.

It said that “the process for the elec­tion of a new Pres­i­dent has com­menced and the Board of Gov­er­nors has been in­vit­ed to sub­mit nom­i­na­tions for the po­si­tion of the Pres­i­dent of the Bank by Au­gust 26, 2024. It is ex­pect­ed that the elec­tion process will con­clude in Oc­to­ber 2024.”

In April this year, Leon sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion with “im­me­di­ate ef­fect” from the re­gion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion af­ter his St. Lu­cia-based lawyers wrote to the bank in­di­cat­ing Leon is of the opin­ion that “he will nev­er be treat­ed fair­ly” af­ter be­ing sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave in Jan­u­ary.

“It is al­so ev­i­dent that the bank has lost all trust and con­fi­dence in our client by the fail­ure of the Board of Gov­er­nors to pre­vent the con­tin­ued vi­o­la­tions of its Char­ter, poli­cies, rules and reg­u­la­tions with re­gard to its elect­ed Pres­i­dent.

“Our client has there­fore made the ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion to re­sign his elect­ed po­si­tion of the Pres­i­dent of the Bank with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.”

The lawyers have giv­en the re­gion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion un­til May 4 “to ne­go­ti­ate an am­i­ca­ble sep­a­ra­tion”, in­di­cat­ing al­so that their cor­re­spon­dence should be viewed “as our client’s pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter” re­gard­ing the en­tire sit­u­a­tion.

In the let­ter dat­ed April 21, a copy of which has been ob­tained by the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion, Leon’s lawyers said they would be mov­ing to the courts in Bar­ba­dos “or any oth­er ju­ris­dic­tion more ap­pro­pri­ate, to en­force our client’s le­gal and con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.”

In Jan­u­ary, it was dis­closed that Leon had been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave un­til April this year as “an on­go­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive process” con­tin­ued at the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion.

The CDB has con­tin­ued to re­main mum on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the de­ci­sion to send the for­mer In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) se­nior of­fi­cial  on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, with Solomon, con­firm­ing at a news con­fer­ence by the bank in Feb­ru­ary that “there is an in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tive process in­volv­ing the pres­i­dent.”

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 lit­er­al­ly take dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against their su­pe­ri­or with­out even con­sult­ing with the di­rec­tors or the gov­er­nors of the bank.”

In May, St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Camil­lo Gon­salves, called on his fel­low CDB gov­er­nors to stop “ex­pos­ing” the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion “to fur­ther ridicule and un­doubt­ed­ly, more lit­i­ga­tion” and move on from the “res­ig­na­tion” of its for­mer pres­i­dent.

In a May 14, 2024, let­ter sent to “my fel­low mem­bers of the CDB Board of Gov­er­nors,” Gon­salves said that he has been asked to “vote on whether the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank should ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion of Dr Hy­gi­nus Leon from his po­si­tion as Pres­i­dent of the CDB, or whether he should be ter­mi­nat­ed as of a date three weeks be­yond his res­ig­na­tion let­ter.”

In the let­ter, a copy of which has been ob­tained by the CMC, Gon­salves said that “as Gov­er­nor for Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines” he had re­ceived two sep­a­rate vot­ing forms on “suc­ces­sive days” ask­ing him to vote on the is­sue.

In his let­ter, Gon­salves not­ed that the cor­re­spon­dence at­tached to the vot­ing form he had re­ceived re­gard­ing whether to vote to ac­cept Leon’s res­ig­na­tion or his ter­mi­na­tion, notes that “In ac­cor­dance with Ar­ti­cle 33 of the Agree­ment Es­tab­lish­ing the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank, for a Pro­pos­al to be adopt­ed, replies in favour must be re­ceived from Gov­er­nors rep­re­sent­ing not less than two-thirds of the to­tal num­ber of gov­er­nors and not less than three-fourths of the to­tal vot­ing pow­er of the mem­bers”.

But Gon­salves, a lawyer, said “this ci­ta­tion of Ar­ti­cle 33 and the pro­ce­dure laid out in the cor­re­spon­dence “do not sup­port the ‘Op­tions’ laid out in the Vot­ing Form.

“The false ap­pli­ca­tion of Ar­ti­cle 33 to the sit­u­a­tion be­fore us leads to a num­ber of ab­sur­di­ties and il­log­i­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties: name­ly that (a) a pres­i­dent can­not re­sign with­out ‘per­mis­sion’ of two-thirds of the Gov­er­nors; (b) Gov­er­nors may vote end­less­ly un­til a thresh­old of two-thirds is reached; or a res­ig­na­tion can be held in abeyance for weeks-pos­si­bly months-on end, un­less Gov­er­nors by a su­per­ma­jor­i­ty de­cide to ac­cept or re­ject it.”

Gon­salves wrote “To put it sim­ply, while Ar­ti­cle 33 in­di­cates that a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty is re­quired to ter­mi­nate the Pres­i­dent, there is no re­quire­ment that a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty is re­quired to ac­cept a res­ig­na­tion.

“The Sec­re­tari­at is read­ing in­to Ar­ti­cle 33, a re­quire­ment that does not ex­ist. The Sec­re­tari­at, or the Board of Gov­er­nors, have no pow­er un­der the Agree­ment Es­tab­lish­ing the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank to re­ject or de­fer a Pres­i­dent’s res­ig­na­tion. The at­tempt to read such a pow­er in­to the Agree­ment is mis­placed and has led to the ab­surd dai­ly-vot­ing sce­nario we now face,” he added.

Gon­salves said that the “op­tions” placed be­fore the board of gov­er­nors “would cre­ate the in­con­gru­ous sit­u­a­tion of a Pres­i­dent who re­mains in the em­ploy of CDB three weeks af­ter he sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion-and pos­si­bly be­yond."

St Lu­cia’s Prime Min­is­ter Phillip J Pierre, speak­ing in his coun­try’s Par­lia­ment in May, blamed a “con­spir­a­cy” for the re­moval of  Leon say­ing: “I want to put on record St Lu­cia’s full sup­port for the work that Gene Leon did at the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank and to re­gret that a con­spir­a­cy, and I make no bones about it and this is not per­son­al to any­body, to any func­tion to the bank, a con­spir­a­cy is what caused Gene Leon to re­sign”.

Leon is the sixth pres­i­dent of the re­gion­al fi­nan­cial 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 head­ed a team of more than 200 em­ploy­ees 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 IMF.

He suc­ceed­ed Ja­maica-born Dr War­ren Smith who re­tired in 2021 af­ter serv­ing as pres­i­dent for 10 years.

In its brief state­ment on Sun­day, the CDB said that “un­der the di­rec­tion of its Board of Gov­er­nors and Di­rec­tors, and through the lead­er­ship of its man­age­ment and the ef­forts of its staff, con­tin­ues to work ful­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly to­geth­er with its mem­ber coun­tries and de­vel­op­ment part­ners to ad­vance CDB’s mis­sion of re­duc­ing pover­ty and trans­form­ing lives through sus­tain­able and re­silient de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives”.

BRIDGETOWN Bar­ba­dos, Jul 21, CMC –

CMC/pr/ir/2024