For­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert is baf­fled by the sud­den re­vo­ca­tion of Dr Alvin Hi­laire’s ap­point­ment as Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor, es­pe­cial­ly if it stemmed from his re­fusal to name the coun­try’s top for­eign ex­change users.

Im­bert said he first learned of Hi­laire’s dis­missal af­ter read­ing a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle on the mat­ter.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence held at Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day, Im­bert ad­mit­ted he had lim­it­ed in­for­ma­tion on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the ter­mi­na­tion. How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that if the is­sue in­volved pres­sure on the for­mer gov­er­nor to dis­close the names of in­di­vid­u­als who re­ceived for­eign ex­change through com­mer­cial banks, such an act would con­sti­tute a crim­i­nal of­fence.