KINGSTON, St. Vincent – The London-based Commonwealth Secretariat says it has rolled out a state-of-the-art software program in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to transform how the country manages its public debt portfolio of US$2.2 billion.
Commonwealth Meridian software (File photo)It said the island is the last sovereign state of the Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union (ECCU) to adopt the software, known as Commonwealth Meridian, within its national infrastructure.
Last month, the Secretariat and the government conducted a two-week workshop here bringing together various stakeholders from the Debt Management Office, Economic Research and Policy Unit, Treasury, and External Audit Unit.
The head of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Debt Management Office, Harold Lewis, said “as debt management operations continue to evolve, we see the migration to using Commonwealth Meridian as a key beneficial tool for the Debt Management Office and other key stakeholders.
“Meridian, as a web-based debt system, now provides us with enhanced and user-friendly capabilities to improve data quality in terms of accuracy, timeliness, and completeness; thereby promoting greater debt transparency,” Lewis added.
Commonwealth Meridian replaces its predecessor, the Commonwealth Secretariat: Debt Recording and Management System (CS-DRMS), which has helped the island record and manage its public debt since 1988.
Business analyst at the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Debt Management Unit, Joanne Allin, said that the roll-out of Commonwealth Meridian here marks “a significant milestone” in modernizing the country’s debt management operations.
“By leveraging advanced technology and comprehensive training, the initiative will improve efficiency, accuracy and transparency in managing the country’s debt.
“This will go a long way toward achieving debt sustainability and fostering resilient economic growth in the region, ultimately creating a positive impact on the lives of people in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,” she said.
Fiscal and Debt Specialist at the St. Kitts-based Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) Juletta Edinborough, said the implementation of Commonwealth Meridian across the ECCU is a major achievement for debt management.
She said the ECCU countries Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines can now utilize this modern and powerful system to record and manage their debt portfolios.
“The system offers greater flexibility in the types of instruments recorded, a welcomed innovation, as countries can now record all of their non-traditional domestic debt instruments, which was not possible with the legacy system.”
First developed in 1985, the Commonwealth Secretariat’s debt management system aims to improve economic performance by helping countries record and manage debt.
The upgraded system, Commonwealth Meridian, was launched in 2019 and is already in use in 47 countries around the world.
