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

270 4. Over time, the Bank would become a “think tank”, dispensing technical assistance and undertaking various developmental initiatives. 5. Eventually, it would be housed in modern offices, reflecting its status as the pre-eminent financial institution in the country. Many individuals and groups helped to bring this vision to fruition. Prime Ministers Errol Barrow, Tom Adams and Sir Harold “Bree” St. John nurtured the Bank's autonomous operation and frequently used its technical analyses and policy advice. Dr. DeLisle Worrell, our first director of research (and later governor), supported my view that central banking was essentially an intellectual activity. A number of senior managers (Kenneth Brathwaite, Victor Springer, Muriel Saunders and Brian Greene, to mention a few) formed the operations backbone of the Bank for the first 15 years and beyond. My long-time secretary, Lucille Simmons, and my chauffeur, Livingstone Boyce, are representative of the secretarial and support staff who made the machinery work. My wife Gloria also shared the vision and supplied emotional support for its fulfilment. Management I found the administration of the new institution to be an especial challenge. Clearly, we had to break away from the model of managing statutory corporations then in vogue. The statutory corporations, established to minimise bureaucracy, continued to follow civil service procedures, with ministerial intervention into day-to-day operations depriving their managements of the autonomy needed for corporate success. They retained the rigidities of the Civil Service without its defences against political intervention, ending up with the worse of both worlds. Fortunately, the political directorate agreed that the Bank would have operational autonomy - not political independence. Moreover, the members