With the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) Programme saving Government $4 billion over the last four years, it was an easy decision to go back to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Prime Minister Mia Mottley said Tuesday.In fact, she said while her administration could have embarked on the initiative on its own, it chose to “play it safe” by opting for a three-year programme with the Washington-based financial institution which she predicts will be just as successful.The Prime Minister made the comments on Tuesday morning in the House of Assembly as she piloted a Resolution to take note of the BERT Plan 2022.Under the new programme that was announced last month and will run until 2027, Barbados is set to receive US$130 million in financing and a further US$210 million under the Resilience and Sustainability Trust set up by the IMF in May to help countries access financing to invest in resilience building.Mottley said a previous suggestion that Government retrench over 5 000 workers would only have saved a maximum of $250 million annually, as opposed to the $4 billion that was saved over the last four years of the original IMF-backed BERT programme.
