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.

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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.