Both Sides of The Coin: The Story of The Central Bank of Barbados 1972-2017

148 of $7.8 million in non-negotiable, non-interest bearing securities from Government. Part of the profits realised since 2014 was used to repay some of the securities previously transferred by Government and the remainder was placed in the Consolidated Fund. THE IMPACT OF THE CMCF ON THE BANK’S FINANCES The Caricom Multilateral Clearing Facility (CMCF) was a system established in 1977 to facilitate payments for regional trade. However, a few years after its formation the operation of the CMCF was hampered by the economic difficulties experienced by Jamaica and Guyana (in particular) and settlements were not made according to the agreed guidelines. As a result, the Facility’s indebtedness to certain countries (notably Barbados) started to rise noticeably. In October 1982, an emergency meeting of the CMCF’s board was convened after Barbados decided to cease extending credit to Guyana when that country’s debt to Barbados exceeded US$40 million. The meeting came up with a number of measures to ease Barbados’ burden but these did little to solve the fundamental problem. Accordingly, at the end of March 1983 when the Facility reached its credit limit of US$100 million, settlements were suspended, with Bds$130.1 million (about 54 per cent of the foreign assets of the Central Bank of Barbados) owed to Barbados. Meetings of Caricom Finance Ministers and Heads of Government in 1983 and 1984 were unsuccessful in reactivating the Facility and payment arrangements reverted to a bilateral basis. During 1990, the participants in the CMCF agreed to consolidate the balances of principal and interest due to Barbados as at September 30, 1989. The total of $154.7 million was repayable over 10 years, after a moratorium of 10 years starting in 1989. The first payment of $2.56 million was received from the Bank of Guyana (BOG) in 1990 and with regular payments thereafter, at the end of 2004 the total had been reduced