Central Bank sees no conflict of interest in Sagewan doing weekly media column

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­[email protected]

Econ­o­mist Dr In­dera Sage­wan says there is no con­flict in her role as a di­rec­tor of the Cen­tral Bank of T&T (CBTT) and in her role as a week­ly news­pa­per colum­nist writ­ing com­men­tary which fo­cus­es on the coun­try’s de­vel­op­men­tal is­sues, par­tic­u­lar­ly di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

“I have not, nor will I write or com­ment on CBTT mat­ters,” she told Guardian Me­dia last week.

How­ev­er, Sage­wan’s sharp and in­ci­sive com­men­tary on pub­lic af­fairs mat­ters can be con­strued as be­ing at odds with the CBTT’s man­date of main­tain­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial sys­tem through mon­e­tary pol­i­cy man­age­ment, says Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Vish­nu Dhan­paul.

A for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter who sat on the board of the CBTT while he was per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Dhan­paul has ex­pressed con­cern about Sage­wan’s roles, say­ing it is a “mas­sive con­flict of in­ter­est.”

Dhan­paul re­ferred Guardian Me­dia to the Cen­tral Bank’s Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance Guide­line.

The doc­u­ment states, “A con­flict of in­ter­est is deemed to arise if a per­son were to make or par­tic­i­pate in the mak­ing of a de­ci­sion in the ex­e­cu­tion of his of­fice and at the same time knows, or ought rea­son­ably to have known, that in the mak­ing of the de­ci­sion, there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly fur­ther his pri­vate in­ter­ests, or that of a mem­ber of his fam­i­ly, or of any oth­er per­son or com­pa­ny from which he stands to ben­e­fit. It al­so in­cludes con­flicts of du­ty which arise when a per­son is re­quired to ful­fil two or more roles that may be in con­flict with each oth­er.”

But nei­ther Sage­wan nor the CBTT see any is­sue.

On Feb­ru­ary 16, Sage­wan wrote a col­umn ti­tled “A Val­i­dat­ing IMF As­sess­ment,” which ex­pressed her opin­ion on the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund’s (IMF) re­cent re­port, pub­lished in the Ex­press news­pa­per. She was de­scribed as an econ­o­mist and Cen­tral Bank di­rec­tor in the ar­ti­cle.

“I did ask the Ex­press (news­pa­per) not to in­clude the fact that I am a board mem­ber of the CBTT un­der my name, but was in­formed that this was nec­es­sary for trans­paren­cy. I have since asked that a dis­claimer be in­clud­ed,” she ex­plained.

“As you are aware, I am an econ­o­mist whose ex­per­tise ex­tends be­yond mon­e­tary mat­ters, and I have al­ways clar­i­fied that my views are my own pro­fes­sion­al ones and not that of the CBTT. You should note that the on­ly spokesper­son of the bank is the Gov­er­nor. In fact, your me­dia house has sought out my ex­pert com­men­tary sev­er­al times since this ap­point­ment and al­ways in my pro­fes­sion­al ca­pac­i­ty, see­ing no con­flict,” she ob­served.

Sage­wan has a po­lit­i­cal past, pre­vi­ous­ly serv­ing as an op­po­si­tion MP for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress for the Ca­roni East seat be­tween 1994 and 1995 and as a tem­po­rary gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor for the par­ty be­tween 1995 to 2000.

Sev­er­al pre­vi­ous di­rec­tors al­so had po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions.

For­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor and colum­nist Dr Rolph Bal­go­b­in be­came an Ex­press colum­nist in April 2013 af­ter pre­vi­ous­ly serv­ing as a Cen­tral Bank di­rec­tor. The stints did not co­in­cide.

Mean­while, sev­er­al of the for­mer di­rec­tors, since 2020, had po­lit­i­cal pasts ei­ther be­fore or af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed as di­rec­tors, such as for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter and Con­gress of the Peo­ple found­ing mem­ber Win­ston Dook­er­an, for­mer UNC gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor Dr Patrick Wat­son, Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go chair­man, pro­fes­sor and UNC en­dors­er Sel­wyn Cud­joe, for­mer UNC tem­po­rary sen­a­tor and cur­rent PNM mem­ber Lar­ry Lal­la, Dhan­paul and for­mer To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly deputy chief sec­re­tary Joel Jack.

Giv­en their po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tions, they al­so com­ment­ed on pol­i­cy mat­ters in the me­dia while they served in po­lit­i­cal­ly-af­fil­i­at­ed of­fices.

In re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, the Cen­tral Bank said di­rec­tors may con­tribute to pub­lic dis­cus­sions on mat­ters re­lat­ed to their ex­per­tise in their pro­fes­sion­al ca­pac­i­ties.

It said for more than two decades, Sage­wan has pro­vid­ed po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic com­ments for lo­cal me­dia, pre­vi­ous­ly crit­i­cis­ing both PNM and UNC ad­min­is­tra­tions.

“We un­der­stand that the di­rec­tor re­quest­ed that they not be ref­er­enced as such in their con­tri­bu­tions, as they are giv­en in their pri­vate pro­fes­sion­al ca­pac­i­ty. The bank is sat­is­fied that ap­pro­pri­ate pro­fes­sion­al lines of dis­tinc­tion in terms of con­tent have been re­spect­ed. The Cen­tral Bank treats is­sues of ac­tu­al and per­ceived con­flict of in­ter­est with great care. If this aris­es, the Bank will ad­dress it in­ter­nal­ly.

“The spokesper­son for the bank is the Gov­er­nor un­less he del­e­gates this au­thor­i­ty oth­er­wise. Board mem­bers do not speak on be­half of the bank, and ques­tions on mat­ters re­lat­ed to the bank’s work are di­rect­ed to the bank’s Ex­ter­nal Re­la­tions de­part­ment. It should be not­ed, though, that di­rec­tors may con­tribute to pub­lic dis­cus­sion on mat­ters re­lat­ed to their ex­per­tise in their pro­fes­sion­al ca­pac­i­ties,” Cen­tral Bank’s se­nior man­ag­er of Hu­man Re­sources, In­dus­tri­al and Ex­ter­nal Re­la­tions, Nicole Crooks, said in re­sponse to ques­tions.

Sage­wan was one of sev­en peo­ple ap­point­ed to the bank’s board last Oc­to­ber.

The oth­er board mem­bers are Dr Anne-Marie Mo­hammed, Anne-Marie Metivi­er-Her­nan­dez, Mahin­dra Ma­haraj, Rawl­ston Singh, Dr Tri­cia Pi­ralo, Vi­jan­ti Be­har­ry, Lor­raine Fer­gu­son, Richard Dun­can, Joel Jack, Pro­fes­sor Suren­dra Ar­joon, Suzette Tay­lor-Lee Chee, Ter­rence Walk­er, and Kern Gar­diner.