THE FNM GETS IT WRONG ON SPECIAL DRAWING RIGHTS

The Leader of the Opposition Michael Pintard issued a statement last week in which he sought to impugn the Government’s right to draw down on monies in the Central Bank on the account for the Government,  He said that the Government had no legal right or entitlement to the money.  It turns out that he was wrong.  The money was deposited during the pandemic by the International Monetary Fund ( IMF) to help countries through the pandemic.  So the money belongs to the Government.  The IMF could only deposit the money to the Central Bank, however.  The problem is that the legislation that governs the bank now does not allow advances unless they are loans.  The government has pledged to amend the act to respectively approve the drawdown.  Bottom line, there was no illegality, the money belonged to the government to do what it wishes with it. The suspicion is that the Central Bank went to the FNM ideologue lawyer Ferron Bethel for an opinion and of course, the opinion went against the government, and the FNM magically got a hold of the opinion.  When that objection did not work, the FNM then switched their tune to ask why does the government need the money.  That’s what you call shifting the goalposts.