Six of 11 Central Bank governors failed to serve five-year terms

Yes­ter­day’s out-of-court set­tle­ment of for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hi­laire’s le­gal chal­lenge to the re­vo­ca­tion of his ap­point­ment has brought re­newed at­ten­tion to the tenure of the in­sti­tu­tion’s gov­er­nors, six of whom served few­er than five years.

Since the Cen­tral Bank be­gan op­er­a­tions in De­cem­ber 1964, 11 peo­ple have held the post of gov­er­nor. Those who served few­er than five years were its first two gov­er­nors, John F Pierce and Alexan­der Nor­man McLeod; Eu­ric Bobb; William De­mas; Jwala Ram­bar­ran and Hi­laire.

The orig­i­nal Cen­tral Bank Act (1964) pre­scribed a five-year term for the gov­er­nor. That re­mained the statu­to­ry re­quire­ment un­til an amend­ment in 2020 al­lowed ap­point­ments for pe­ri­ods of be­tween three and five years. The dis­tinc­tion is im­por­tant: serv­ing few­er than five years does not, in every case, es­tab­lish that a gov­er­nor was re­moved be­fore the end of the term to which he was ap­point­ed.

Pierce, an Amer­i­can, was in­volved in prepara­to­ry work for the es­tab­lish­ment of the bank and served as gov­er­nor for about 13 months be­fore leav­ing in April 1966. His tenure was marked by ten­sions with the gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of Fi­nance, in­clud­ing dis­agree­ments sur­round­ing the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Cen­tral Bank Act.

He was suc­ceed­ed by Cana­di­an Alexan­der Nor­man McLeod, who served from 1966 to 1969. McLeod ex­pe­ri­enced fric­tion with the Dr Er­ic Williams ad­min­is­tra­tion over the role of mon­e­tary pol­i­cy. The dis­agree­ment cen­tred on whether the Cen­tral Bank should use mon­e­tary pol­i­cy to sup­port the gov­ern­ment’s de­vel­op­ment ob­jec­tives or fo­cus on mon­e­tary sta­bil­i­ty, even where that might run counter to the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s plans.

Bobb, who served from 1984-1988, al­so had se­ri­ous dis­agree­ments with the gov­ern­ment. Dif­fer­ences over the bank’s role, ex­change-rate pol­i­cy and the han­dling of the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic cri­sis be­came ir­rec­on­cil­able. Bobb re­signed in 1987 and left of­fice the fol­low­ing year.

De­mas served from 1988-1992. Al­though his tenure was al­so short­er than five years, the his­tor­i­cal record does not es­tab­lish that he left be­cause of a fun­da­men­tal dis­agree­ment with the gov­ern­ment.

The next ma­jor le­gal chal­lenge in­volv­ing a gov­er­nor fol­lowed the dis­missal of Ram­bar­ran in De­cem­ber 2015. Ap­point­ed in Ju­ly 2012 for a five-year term, Ram­bar­ran was re­moved about two and a half years be­fore that term was due to ex­pire.

Ram­bar­ran was dis­missed af­ter he pub­licly iden­ti­fied the five largest users of for­eign ex­change by sec­tor and dis­closed the amounts they had used over the pre­ced­ing three years at the Cen­tral Bank’s Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy Fo­rum on De­cem­ber 4, 2015.

He al­so ar­gued that T&T had en­tered a re­ces­sion.

The High Court found his ter­mi­na­tion was un­law­ful and breached his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

The Court of Ap­peal up­held the find­ing on li­a­bil­i­ty but re­duced the dam­ages award to ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3.42 mil­lion. The State’s ap­peal is due to be heard by the Privy Coun­cil in April 2027.

Hi­laire suc­ceed­ed Ram­bar­ran in De­cem­ber 2015, ini­tial­ly re­ceiv­ing a five-year ap­point­ment.

He was reap­point­ed for three years in De­cem­ber 2020 and for a fur­ther three years in De­cem­ber 2023, with his fi­nal term due to end in De­cem­ber 2026.

His ap­point­ment was re­voked on June 24, 2025, leav­ing about 18 months of that term un­served.

In the weeks be­fore his re­moval, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly ac­cused Hi­laire of re­fus­ing to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion about the coun­try’s largest users of for­eign ex­change.

At a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence in June 2025, she de­scribed at­tempts to ob­tain in­for­ma­tion from the Cen­tral Bank as be­ing “like a bed of thorns or pulling teeth.” She said Hi­laire had failed to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in 2024 and again in 2025, and de­scribed the bank’s fail­ure to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion as a “block­er” to the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to in­ves­ti­gate the for­eign ex­change mar­ket.

Ram­bar­ran and Hi­laire are the two gov­er­nors among the six who chal­lenged their re­movals through le­gal pro­ceed­ings.