KINGSTON, Jamaica — People’s National Party (PNP) President, Dr Peter Phillips, has hailed Dr Owen Jefferson, former senior deputy governor at the Bank of Jamaica, as an “outstanding pioneer of Jamaica’s economic development”.

Jefferson, who had been sick for some time, died yesterday at his St Andrew home.

Phillips noted that Dr Jefferson stands with others including George Beckford and Norman Girvan who devoted themselves to the study of the modern Jamaican economy.

Noting that they provided the foundation for the Department of Economics which was founded in the 1960s at the University of the West Indies, he said their influence and scholarship still remain significant in Jamaica and the Caribbean today.

“On account of his outstanding work as an economist, Dr Jefferson went to the Bank of Jamaica where he was a senior Deputy Governor and he made a sterling contribution. He oversaw the liberalisation of the Jamaican currency and managed the spread of market forces which provided for the accumulation of Jamaica’s reserves of foreign currency,” Phillips said.

He also noted that Dr Jefferson was one of the giants of academia and economic thought whose scholarship, work and commitment carried Jamaica forward in the post independence years.