DERICK Latibeaudiere yesterday resigned as governor of the central bank with immediate effect in what was said to be a mutual agreement between him and Finance Minister Audley Shaw.

However, highly placed sources in the Government said the resignation was an inevitable outcome, given the administration’s frustration with the governor’s position on a number of critical policy issues.

Latibeaudiere’s departure from the Bank of Jamaica, after more than a decade at the helm, was announced in a three-paragraph news release in which the finance ministry also said that Brian Wynter, the former executive director of the Financial Services Commission and a former deputy governor of the BOJ, will replace Latibeaudiere on December 1.

The ministry also said that in the interim, Audrey Anderson, senior Deputy Governor of the BOJ, will be in charge of the bank until November 30.

Attempts to reach Latibeaudiere for a comment last night were unsuccessful. However, yesterday evening he told Nationwide Radio boss Cliff Hughes that he was not pushed out of the job.

“We came to a mutual agreement. Just leave it at that nuh,” Latibeaudiere said in an interview in which he also told Hughes that he had long waited for the day when he could tell the veteran journalist that he would not answer his questions.

Last night, a senior Government official who said he heard the Nationwide interview, pointed to the former governor’s tone and charged that during his tenure Latibeaudiere had displayed a level of arrogance with the financial sector and impatience with views that were opposed to his on major policy issues.

“His style has been the source of irritation to the banking sector,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It got so bad that the finance minister and the Government had to act as go-between in order to smooth out the problems.”

Asked how Latibeaudiere’s sudden resignation would affect the Government’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose representatives are now in the island hammering out the terms of a loan agreement with the administration, the source said it wouldn’t have a negative effect.

“It may actually benefit the negotiations because he has been the sticking point,” said the source, pointing to Latibeaudiere’s disagreement with the growing view among financial analysts in favour of debt restructuring, as well as his opposition to calls from the private sector to significantly lower interest rates.

“He’s still in the mode that got us to where we are today,” said the source.

Yesterday, the finance ministry also announced that Dr Wesley Hughes, the financial secretary, will take charge of the talks with the IMF.

Although Latibeaudiere, in his interview with Nationwide, said he had no problem with Shaw or any member of the BOJ board, the Observer was last night reliably informed that some members of the board disagreed with Latibeaudiere on a number of issues.

Some board members, for instance, felt that the bank had a much wider role to play than controlling inflation, one authoritative source said.

Financial sector sources last night also speculated that the resignation on Wednesday of Dr Geffrey Pyne from the BOJ board contributed to Latibeaudiere’s sudden departure.

Contacted for comment, Dr Pyne offered only that: “What I had was a fundamental difference on a major policy issue with the governor and some members of the board.”

Dr Pyne, who served on the board for seven years, was chair of the Budget Committee at the time of his resignation.

DERICK Latibeaudiere took office as governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) on April 1, 1996 and was the first member of the bank’s staff to have been appointed to this position.

A career central banker, Latibeaudiere joined the staff of the Bank of Jamaica in 1975. Between 1979 and 1983, he was seconded to the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in Barbados as a country economist where he developed a sound knowledge of the economies of the English-speaking Caribbean countries.

He returned to the Bank of Jamaica in 1983 and worked in various positions until 1988 when he was appointed deputy governor. He became senior deputy governor in 1995, and in 1996 was appointed governor and supervisor of banks. In 2000, he was appointed chairman of the newly established Financial Regulatory Council, the body responsible for co-ordinating the regulation of the overall financial system.

In 1997 Latibeaudiere was awarded the Carlton Alexander Award for Excellence by his alma mater, Jamaica College, and on August 6, 2002 he received the country’s fourth highest national award, the Order of Jamaica, for his services to central banking and finance.

(Source: Bank of Jamaica website)