OFFICIALS SAY REFORMS WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE, INCLUDING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH MERIDIAN DEBT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, ARE IMPROVING TRANSPARENCY, DECISION MAKING, AND POSITIONING ST. LUCIA AS A REGIONAL LEADER IN DEBT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES.

The Debt and Investment Unit in the Department of Finance is gaining international recognition for modernizing its public debt management system, with the Commonwealth Secretariat highlighting the island as a success story for Small Island Developing States across the Commonwealth.

“Commonwealth Debt Management Programme, has been working very closely with St. Lucia’s Ministry of Finance for several decades.”

A team from the Commonwealth Secretariat was recently in Saint Lucia to produce a feature documentary examining how the country has transformed the way it manages public debt through reforms led by the Debt and Investment Unit.

“Data, data, data. Without data, you cannot make timely, correct, and holistic decisions.”

Director of Finance, Imran Williams, said Saint Lucia’s longstanding partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat has played a critical role in strengthening its debt management operations.

"We've had a very fruitful and productive relationship with the Commonwealth Secretariat. They've assisted us with several activities thus far.”

Williams noted that effective debt management is critical to maintaining investor confidence and ensuring the country can continue financing national development responsibly.

"Management of the debt gives a signal that the government is being prudent, being fiscally responsible, and being careful as they try to balance the increasing debt with the development of the country and ensuring that you get the least cost possible debt to facilitate that development."

A major part of Saint Lucia’s reform efforts has been the adoption of the Commonwealth Meridian debt management system, a modern web-based platform that centralizes debt data and allows officials to access real-time information.

"Meridian would allow you to always be able to understand what is the share of your debt, who are the holders of the debt of the Government of Saint Lucia, the issued paper, at any point in time. So you can have a better risk strategy to ensure its spread as thinly as possible. You’re getting debt as costly as possible by costly. By costly, I mean as low as possible."

Deputy Director of Finance with responsibility for Debt and Investment, Vera John-Emmanuel, explained that Meridian became especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing officers to continue managing debt operations remotely while maintaining timely reporting requirements.

"Meridian is the foundation of our unit in terms of providing timely and accurate data to our decision-makers. It has assisted us very much. We were introduced to Meridian in 2019, the first country in the Caribbean who was able to adopt that new system. It is web-based, and when I say timely, it came in a time when we had to be working from home through COVID.  It really came to push the country further in terms of being transparent, allowing the citizens of the country to know that the government is not hiding the debt that they have contracted, but it's available."

Senior Communications Officer with the Commonwealth Secretariat, Snobar Abbasi, says the feature documentary will profile the Commonwealth’s collaboration with member countries on debt management.

“It would be shared on the Commonwealth social media platforms where we have about half a million followers. In addition to that, we have partnerships with broadcasters in member countries within the Commonwealth, so we would offer it to the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation and they would distribute it to different networks within the Caribbean regions, and we would also work with our public broadcasters partners in the Pacific, mainly Fiji Broadcasting Corporation, so the message gets shared broad and wide within people and the policy makers within our small island developing countries in the Commonwealth."

The reforms undertaken by the Department of Finance have increased transparency, improved fiscal management, and position Saint Lucia as a regional leader in modern debt management practices.

 

For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, Glen Simon, Reporting.