PNM in Gov't(2015-2020)

[shake d livin wake d dead]

You feel Faris Al Rawi is the same thieving, corrupt and lying AG like Anand Ramlogan?

Faris doh thief...he does just take

[shake d livin wake d dead]

https://www.guardian.co.tt/news/man-dee ... edaf4b6189

ah go jes rest this here...everybody know spanish is ah good boy

[The_Honourable]

Knowing pnm logic, they will call Dr. Selwyn Cudjoe a UNC, sellout, lick bottom, etc for speaking the truth.

Black betrayal



AFTER my article appeared in the Express last Sunday I received the following note: “Gd Mr Cudjoe. I have been reading your articles in the newspapers for a while and I want to invite to come and take a look at East Port of Spain where we live. My name is Aaron St John. I am 41 years old and was born in this city. It has not changed for all my life. It remains the same dirty, nasty undeveloped, unprotected and it’s only getting worse and more dangerous. Our lives are not improving and a deep sadness covers every home and everyone in and around the city.

“I want to invite you and also the media to come and see what we have been dealing with over 50 years—50 years of neglect. Our grandparents and parents some of them are already dead. They died of sadness, unhappiness, shame and bitterness. Please come and see for yourself and maybe they will listen to you or not but at least u would (have) done a great deed for your people, the children of slaves.”

I couldn’t ignore Aaron’s letter. I went to East Port of Spain to see things for myself. This is my modus operandi. The previous Sunday I referred to a report I did on Torrib Trace Presbyterian School in 2005 about the callous racial manner in which some teachers there treated black students. I spent about three days documenting conditions there. Lennox Sirjusingh concluded that black professionals, black children, and black parents and I lied about the conditions there because the “responsible Presbyterian Primary Schools Board of Education investigated and found no evidence of the allegation” (Express, February 29). Other people tell the truth; black people lie about their conditions.

I met Aaron on Wednesday. He painted a bleak picture of the area. He believed PNM failed to take care of its own. Other residents shared his concerns. He remembers two photos in his grandmother’s living room: Jesus Christ and Eric Williams. They were the twin leaders of his home. His grandmother kept a dried-up balisier in her home.

“It was wasting away, but she never throw it away.”

She never missed voting in an election.

He remembers: “When time come to vote she would rush to the polling station even though she couldn’t see very well. Such was her love for the PNM.”

Aaron believes his grandmother’s devotion was never reciprocated. They (the members of Parliament) never loved the people as the people love the party.

“Our parents should have fired them a long time ago. Our downfall in town is that we believe in the PNM so much that we accepted being deceived by them. For years, we have called evil good. But love has no colour, no gender, no race and the PNM does not show us that love.”

He continued: “We have four parliamentarians in Parliament (Fitzgerald Hinds, Marlene McDonald, Stuart Young and Adrian Leonce) but they do nothing for us. We don’t see them. We have no political clout in the party. Our schools (Success Laventille Secondary, South East Port of Spain Secondary and primary schools Eastern Boys’ Government and Eastern Government Girls’ are broken and under-protected. They are under-developed and under-performing.”

Aaron claims that the physical surrounding of these places leaves much to be desired.

He says: “The stench of faeces and urine around the school (South East Port of Spain Secondary) makes it undesirable for educating the young minds of the area. These schools have nothing going on for them. Homeless people walk around smoking crack. This makes things look hopeless.”

This neglect disturbs Aaron greatly. He pulls out a Sunday Guardian article from his bag which lists prominent men who came out of that area. They include Dr Alvin Hilaire, Central Bank Governor; George Chambers, former prime minister; and Clinton Bernard, former CJ.

Errol “Bush” Holder, a long-standing member of the community, says: “It hurts my heart to see what’s going on now...We can’t walk up Nelson Street now...because of the vagrants living in the river and we might catch a disease. It’s a shame to see how the place has become” (September 1, 2019).

This article reminds of what he considers a lost Arcadia.

I visited the area yesterday morning. I took a taxi to Duncan and Prince streets, walked across Prince Street, turned on George Street, turned on Charlotte Street and ended up in a Port of Spain secondary school. The stench on George and Cockton streets was suffocating but I persevered.

The friendliness, cleanliness and warmth within the school contrasted with offensive-smelling surrounding. Inside the school, I spoke with Dean Roger Martin, whose commitment to the school and his pupils are boundless. Colins Wason, a math teacher who offers his services freely to the children on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, says: “I come back to give something back to the country and the school.”

Another English teacher was studiously at work.

She attended to her students’ needs assiduously. She preferred to remain nameless.

I asked the dean what kind of assistance the school receives from its parliamentary representative.

I was told: “We haven’t seen Marlene in years. She has never come to this school and asked a question even though her office is on Piccadilly Street.”

I also asked what kind of assistance the school receives from its past students or members of the black community. The answer was in the negative. Representing one’s community faithfully or giving back seems to be a foreign concept to many of us.

Fortunately, the people within the school had other ideas of what constituted service. I will speak of those challenges next week.

Source: https://trinidadexpress.com/opinion/col ... 72a4e.html

[pugboy]

kamala must be give him a piece of land

[zoom rader]

The problem with the black community in trin is that they don't like to be govern by non black folk. Non back folk will quicker vote PNM than black folk voting for a non black party.

[one eye]

Dr. Selwyn is a sellout just like David Muhammad. They are not for the black people. This is a black PNM country!! Nobody can take that away from us!

[The_Honourable]

Dr. Selwyn is a sellout just like David Muhammad. They are not for the black people. This is a black PNM country!! Nobody can take that away from us!

I rest my case

[zoom rader]

Dr. Selwyn is a sellout just like David Muhammad. They are not for the black people. This is a black PNM country!! Nobody can take that away from us!

I agree , this is a black stupid country

[paid_influencer]

Kamla bussing files. $400 million loan to MTS from NCBGF (CEO is relative of Stuart Young).

Loan runs over 9 years, 18 interest payments, totaling 164.5 Million dollars in interest to NCBGF.

[linton]

Dr. Selwyn is a sellout just like David Muhammad. They are not for the black people. This is a black PNM country!! Nobody can take that away from us!

As a black man myself , I'm ashamed of
stupid people like you who don't care that
the PNM never does anything for us but we
keep putting them back because we want
our own there . I have the highest respect
for Dr Cudjoe who speaks it like he sees it
and is correct in what he's saying.

[pugboy]

Ah find imps et al silent like mouse wrt oil prices

[zoom rader]

Dr. Selwyn is a sellout just like David Muhammad. They are not for the black people. This is a black PNM country!! Nobody can take that away from us!

As a black man myself , I'm ashamed of
stupid people like you who don't care that
the PNM never does anything for us but we
keep putting them back because we want
our own there . I have the highest respect
for Dr Cudjoe who speaks it like he sees it
and is correct in what he's saying.

I believe one eye is really a UNC and trying to make PNM look bad

[D Diesel Report]

Dr. Selwyn is a sellout just like David Muhammad. They are not for the black people. This is a black PNM country!! Nobody can take that away from us!

*in deep Hutu Voice*

It is time good bradas and sistas, we must cut de tall trees! Cut de tall trees now!

[Redman]

Kamla bussing files. $400 million loan to MTS from NCBGF (CEO is relative of Stuart Young).

Loan runs over 9 years, 18 interest payments, totaling 164.5 Million dollars in interest to NCBGF.

This was in the papers. Fully explained the files that she bussing.
December

4.5% on 400M for a 9 year facility would be 160M
Fees about4%

[hydroep]

Energy Minister: We could be hurt severely
Cur­tis Williams

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan has ad­mit­ted that if the on­go­ing price-war be­tween Sau­di Ara­bia and Rus­sia con­tin­ues for a pro­longed pe­ri­od this coun­try could be sig­nif­i­cant­ly hurt.

In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day Khan told Guardian Me­dia: “The Sau­di’s have their own agen­da, Rus­sia has a more geopo­lit­i­cal agen­da be­cause they are claim­ing that they want to squeeze the US out of the Shale mar­ket. But in any event both Sau­di and Rus­sia, for what­ev­er rea­sons, they can sur­vive on de­pressed prices for a pe­ri­od, as for how­ev­er long that pe­ri­od is I don’t know, but coun­tries like Trinidad who are price tak­ers—I mean we would be hurt se­vere­ly.”

Fear and a price-war be­tween two of the world’s largest oil pro­duc­ers have caused a pre­cip­i­tous col­lapse of crude prices and re­sult­ed in a team led by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, Khan and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young work­ing on plans to ame­lio­rate the fall­out should the coun­try have to en­dure a sus­tained pe­ri­od of de­pressed prices.

Khan said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who is out of the coun­try has been con­tact­ed on the de­vel­op­ing cri­sis.

“It on­ly hap­pened a cou­ple days ago and took the pre­cip­i­tous dive yes­ter­day. So we are in dis­cus­sion, the Min­is­ter Fi­nance, my self and Min­is­ter Young made com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter. And we are dis­cussing what plans we can put in place in the event that this is a sus­tained de­pressed mar­ket,” Khan told Guardian Me­dia.

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter has called a news con­fer­ence for eleven o’clock to­day to up­date the me­dia and the coun­try on the state of the econ­o­my.

Over the week­end, the Saud­is slashed their of­fi­cial sell­ing prices by $6-7 a bar­rel to all mar­kets in­clud­ing Asia, and sig­nalled they would boost pro­duc­tion as of April, send­ing oil prices in­to a tail­spin on Mon­day to the biggest fall since 1991.

Late yes­ter­day evening, Brent Crude was trad­ing at US $33.48 down 26 per cent of US $11.84 a bar­rel from a day ago and West Texas In­ter­me­di­ate was down by 24.6 per­cent trad­ing at US $31.13 a bar­rel US$10.15 less than the pre­vi­ous 24 hours.

To put this in­to con­text the two mark­ers are im­por­tant be­cause oil from the T&T’s east coast and con­den­sate tend to fetch just above Brent prices, while Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and crude from in­de­pen­dent op­er­a­tors on-land tend to trade at US $5 above WTI prices.

T&T pro­duces just un­der 59,000 bar­rels of oil per day and the gov­ern­ment gets rev­enue from tax­es and when prices are over US $50 a bar­rel al­so gets a wind­fall tax in the form of Sup­ple­men­tal Pe­tro­le­um Tax.

Khan ex­plained that there are a lot of is­sues that are af­fect­ing the oil price in­clud­ing the coro­n­avirus and the price war be­tween Rus­sia and the Saud­is.

The Min­is­ter said he is hop­ing it would not be a sus­tained pe­ri­od of very de­pressed prices but the gov­ern­ment is dis­cussing al­ter­na­tives and as they be­come clear­er will com­mu­ni­cate with the pub­lic.

When asked how this will af­fect Her­itage, Khan said: “Well Her­itage, for­tu­nate­ly, has been in­creas­ing their pro­duc­tion be­cause of the MOPU (Mo­bile Op­er­at­ing Pro­duc­tion Unit) is now up.

“They have been for­tu­nate al­so in get­ting fair­ly good prices for their crude, which is av­er­ag­ing WTI+5. And that has hap­pened for the first half of the fis­cal year be­cause re­mem­ber we’re halfway through the fis­cal year al­ready.” The Min­is­ter told Guardian Me­dia.

Khan ac­knowl­edged that for the last two months prices have been much low­er than an­tic­i­pat­ed. The En­er­gy Min­is­ter said he was hop­ing that if the prices are low for a cou­ple months it would not sig­nif­i­cant­ly erode the coun­try’s over­all fis­cal sit­u­a­tion.

“But hav­ing said that when you look at the dy­nam­ics of the mar­ket it is hard to pre­dict. Rus­sia and Sau­di could hug up to­mor­row and every­thing will be sort­ed save and ex­cept Coro­na (COVID-19) but a lot of these things we have no con­trol over, all we could do, just like as your­self as a jour­nal­ist is mon­i­tor the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket. We have no in­sid­er in­for­ma­tion, we are not a mem­ber of OPEC we have like how we are a mem­ber of the GECF (Gas Ex­port­ing Coun­tries Fo­rum) so that you could get some in­sid­er in­for­ma­tion. So we just have to mon­i­tor the glob­al mar­ket, it is af­fect­ing the stock mar­ket it is af­fect­ing Wall Street, so it is not a com­fort­able po­si­tion in the world. And with the coro­n­avirus, the world econ­o­my is go­ing down sig­nif­i­cant­ly in Eu­rope and Asia.”

On­ly yes­ter­day the In­ter­na­tion­al En­er­gy Agency pre­dict­ed that glob­al de­mand for crude oil will fall for the first time since the great re­ces­sion of 2009.

The re­port read: “While the sit­u­a­tion re­mains flu­id, we ex­pect glob­al oil de­mand to fall in 2020—the first full-year de­cline in more than a decade—be­cause of the deep con­trac­tion in Chi­na, which ac­count­ed for more than 80% of glob­al oil de­mand growth in 2019, and ma­jor dis­rup­tions to trav­el and trade”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia (GML), Econ­o­mist Gre­go­ry McGuire re­marked: “Well that’s pret­ty ob­vi­ous. Low oil prices mean less gov­ern­ment rev­enue, means a larg­er fis­cal deficit, means the gov­ern­ment can’t meet its ex­pen­di­ture com­mit­ments un­less it bor­rows and/or draws down more on the Her­itage and Sta­bi­liza­tion Fund—be­cause that’s what it’s there for.”

En­er­gy Cham­ber CEO Dr Thack­wray “Dax” Dri­ver echoed McGuire’s sen­ti­ments, al­so in­di­cat­ing to GML “there will be a neg­a­tive im­pact on T&T’s econ­o­my” and “on the for­eign ex­change sit­u­a­tion.”

On Mon­day, Oc­to­ber 7th 2019, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert as­sumed an oil price of US$60 per bar­rel with an ex­pect­ed rev­enue of $11 bil­lion for the fis­cal year 2020.

McGuire stat­ed that if there is a pro­longed pe­ri­od of oil low oil prices, the gov­ern­ment will then have to seek ways and means of cut­ting its ex­pen­di­ture. He com­ment­ed that cut­ting ex­pen­di­ture has its own im­pli­ca­tions in terms of the num­ber of jobs or fur­ther re­duc­tions in gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies.

McGuire added: “We are al­ready not hav­ing as much as we used to, so for fur­ther pro­longed re­duc­tion in in­come will, in fact, ac­cel­er­ate the lev­el of dif­fi­cul­ty that we will face as an econ­o­my.”

When asked if the sav­ings from the low­er crude prices should be passed on to the T&T cus­tomers, where­by they will pay less at the pumps, McGuire said: “In the­o­ry, yes.”

https://www.guardian.co.tt/news/energy-minister-we-could-be-hurt-severely-6.2.1075661.aaf37f9e94

[hydroep]

Imbert: PNM handled it successfully before
Coronavirus, oil $$ crisis
Ria Taitt


THE PNM Government has successfully managed a financial crisis before.

So remarked Finance Minister Colm Imbert as he responded to questions yesterday on the implications for national revenues in light of current financial crises brought on by the Covid-19 coronavirus and the collapse in energy prices as a result of fallout between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

It is a mass area of uncertainty, according to economists.

However, Imbert appeared to exude a measure of confidence over the Government’s ability to navigate this developing crisis.

“This PNM Government has successfully managed a financial crisis of this nature before.

“Remember, in 2016, oil prices dropped to US$26 per barrel, yet we managed to pay salaries and bills, keep the country afloat and implement our development programme in that year.

“We have been through this before in this administration, and I, as Minister of Finance, had my baptism of fire in the early years of this Government, when we lost $20 billion in annual revenue from petroleum in less than two years.

“At that time, as now, there was no clear indication as to when the crisis would end, so we adjusted to suit, exercised fiscal discipline and persevered,” he told the Express.

“We were eventually able to recover $10 billion in annual revenue through a multi-faceted approach to eliminating waste and mismanagement and improving revenue collection,” he stated.

On the issue of the impact on revenue, Imbert said: “We are currently calculating that. I should know by the end of the day what we are looking at.”

The minister said he will hold a news conference today to “provide some clarity on how we as a country need to approach this financial crisis”.

The news conference will be held at Imbert’s Port of Spain office from 11 a.m.

Drawdown

Also responding to a question of if Government may be tempted to tap into the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund, Imbert pointed out that drawdowns from the HSF are ex-post facto.

“The way the law is currently structured, you have to wait until the fiscal year has ended before you can draw down from the HSF based on estimates of revenue from petroleum made in the fiscal year.”

Therefore, a drawdown based on a shortfall in oil revenues in 2020 can only be made in 2021, he noted. Imbert’s budget which was presented last October was based on an oil price of US$60 and a gas price of US$3 per mmbtu.

Oil prices plunged to between US$33-35 per barrel yesterday with the gas price at US$1.78 per mmbtu.

https://trinidadexpress.com/news/local/imbert-pnm-handled-it-successfully-before/article_ec057ff4-6273-11ea-93d4-7fc08e87b935.html

[zoom rader]

Nice PNM saved the day !

Too bad they wont around when UNC ran the country on sub $12US a day in the mid 1990s

[The_Honourable]

Keep in mind we borrowed a lot from China and Latin America

Govt’s foreign debt rising

Gov­ern­ment has tak­en a US$200 mil­lion loan from a Latin Amer­i­can bank to fund the new ANR Robin­son Air­port. At cur­rent ex­change rates, that trans­lates to a new TT$1.35 bil­lion loan on the books.

Last week, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said that the up­grades to the To­ba­go air­port were pegged at $1.2 bil­lion.

He said then that the Gov­ern­ment would spend $36 mil­lion to up­grade the ex­ist­ing build­ing and $870 mil­lion to build the new air­port ter­mi­nal. He said the ad­di­tion­al TT$300 mil­lion was "raised" by the Min­istry of Fi­nance for the land ac­qui­si­tion.

How­ev­er, weeks be­fore Im­bert made that state­ment, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that the Gov­ern­ment got ap­proval for that $300 mil­lion loan from Sco­tia­bank to pur­chase 53 plots of land from res­i­dents in the ar­eas sur­round­ing the air­port.

With this new loan, it means that T&T's debt to a Latin Amer­i­can bank has now sur­passed the coun­try's ex­ist­ing in­debt­ed­ness to Chi­na.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Fi­nance's 2020 draft es­ti­mate doc­u­ments, T&T bor­rowed over US$800 mil­lion from the De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca (CAF) be­tween 2016 and 2018.

At the last count in 2018, Im­bert pegged T&T's debt to Chi­na at TT$2.2 bil­lion. How­ev­er, the coun­try's debt to the CAF stands at more than TT$5 bil­lion.

This in­cludes the $1.35 bil­lion loan for the up­grade to the ANR Robin­son Air­port in To­ba­go and road works in south Trinidad.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Fi­nance Draft Es­ti­mate doc­u­ment for 2020, the fol­low­ing list is some of the ex­ter­nal debts that the coun­try has in­curred:

-US $7,540,000 Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre

-RMB Yuan 812,000,000Na­tion­al Acad­e­mies for the Per­form­ing Arts

-US $150 mil­lion for six fast Pa­trol Crafts

-US $93,571,620. 75 for the Sup­ply of four He­li­copters

-US$550 mil­lion. 4.375% Notes ( 2013 - 2024)

- CDB Loan En­er­gy Sec­tor Sup­port Pol­i­cy-Based Loan

- US $169Mn (TT$1,077Mnl—Con­struc­tion of the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal

- Eu­ro 91.769,213—TT$660Mnl Con­struc­tion of the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal

- US $34.2Mn Chi­nese Mul­ti-pur­pose ves­sels

- EUR 168,532, Damen

- US $300Mn CAF

- US $1. OBn 4.5% f R B 2026

- US$180Mn CAF Pol­i­cy-Based Loan

- Eu­ro 81.4Mn—Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal

- US $120Mn CAF Pol­i­cy-Based Loan—Phase II

- US$200Mn CAF—ANR Robin­son Int'l Air­port Up­grad­ing

- US$104.3Mn Phoenix Park

- EU­RO $101 mil­lion San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal Con­struc­tion

- US$58.5Mn In­cat fer­ry

- US$57. 2Mn Austal fer­ry

- US$200Mn CAf—In­vest­ment Loan (SWAP)

Back in 2018, the Min­istry of Fi­nance pegged T&T's debt to Chi­na at $2.2 bil­lion but since then the Gov­ern­ment has signed off on two new ma­jor loans in­clud­ing over $700 mil­lion loan for the de­vel­op­ment of the Phoenix Park In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in 2019 and an­oth­er more re­cent $100m loan for a new foren­sic cen­tre.

The EX­IM Bank of Chi­na seems to be the go-to loan fa­cil­i­ta­tor for the State as in 2016, the Gov­ern­ment ac­cessed an­oth­er mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar loan from it, this time to fund the pur­chase of the "mul­ti-pur­pose ves­sel, pro­vi­sion of lo­gis­tic sup­port for the ac­qui­si­tion of naval as­sets and main­te­nance and train­ing for the ac­qui­si­tion of 12 naval as­sets."

Ac­cord­ing to the 2016 Pub­lic Ser­vice In­vest­ment Pro­gramme, the ex­ter­nal fund­ing which to­talled $358.7 mil­lion was fi­nanced from ING (Hol­land) and EX­IM Bank of Chi­na.

Ac­cord­ing to the same doc­u­ment, the loans for the ves­sels, the train­ing and main­te­nance were sourced from three in­sti­tu­tions: US$30 mil­lion loan from ANSA, US $183 mil­lion from ING (Hol­land), and the US $24 mil­lion from EX­IM Bank (Chi­na).

In the same year, the Gov­ern­ment al­so drew down an­oth­er $120 mil­lion from EX­IM Bank of Chi­na for the con­struc­tion of the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to the 2018 State En­ter­pris­es In­vest­ment Pro­gramme doc­u­ment, Gov­ern­ment al­so sourced $532 mil­lion in loans from the EX­IM Bank of Chi­na for the Na­tion­al Ten­nis Cen­tre, Tacarigua, the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome, Cou­va and a mul­ti­pur­pose youth sport­ing fa­cil­i­ty, San­gre Grande (for­mer­ly con­struc­tion of three mul­ti­pur­pose sport/youth fa­cil­i­ties)

Ac­cord­ing to the 2020 PSIPs, Chi­nese in­vestors have al­so been se­lect­ed for the sale of 50 per cent of the in­dus­tri­al es­tates now un­der the re­mit of Evolv­ing Tech­nolo­gies and En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (eTecK).

Chi­nese in­vest­ment has al­so been sought for the par­tial di­vest­ment of 49 per cent of the share­hold­ing of Lake As­phalt of Trinidad and To­ba­go (1978) Lim­it­ed.

The 2018 debt fig­ure in­clud­ed the fol­low­ing:

•Con­struc­tion of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts and South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts.

•Out­stand­ing debts from loans for the two are $440,295,212 and $180,835,533 re­spec­tive­ly.

•Loan for the con­struc­tion of the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal cur­rent­ly stands at $924,511,500.

•The Gov­ern­ment is al­so ow­ing to a fi­nance fa­cil­i­ty that al­lowed for the con­struc­tion of six sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

•Then there is a debt for the pur­chase of a mul­ti-pur­pose pa­trol ves­sel based on a cred­it fa­cil­i­ty, amount­ing to $138,609,487.

No com­ment from Fi­nance Min­is­ter

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to find 2011-2014 Draft Es­ti­mate doc­u­ments on the Min­istry of Fi­nance web­site.

Guardian Me­dia al­so called and texted Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for up­dat­ed fig­ures and emailed the Min­istry's Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary for a re­sponse. Nei­ther of them re­spond­ed.

Dukha­ran:

One econ­o­mist and two for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters ex­pressed their con­cern over not on­ly the num­ber of gov­ern­ment loans but the fact that it's in the al­ready scarce US dol­lar.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to econ­o­mist Mar­la Dukha­ran on Thurs­day re­gard­ing the uptick in loan ac­tiv­i­ty.

Dukha­ran said US loan means US re­pay­ment.

"When you take on USD debt, you have to re­pay it in USD, and if you don’t have enough USD, that means you have a bal­ance of pay­ments or debt cri­sis, and you have to go to the IMF for as­sis­tance," she said.

"This may sound far off, but con­sid­er this—we have lost USD4.6 bil­lion in re­serves since the peak in 2014, and re­serves have fall­en to just about USD6.9 bil­lion at the end of 2019, which is about sev­en months of im­port cov­er.

"Now, im­port cov­er is not just about how much you im­port to con­sume, it al­so needs to take in­to ac­count the amount of USD you need to re­pay your debt and oth­er oblig­a­tions.

"So the more we bor­row in USD, the more we must re­pay, the faster these re­serves will be ex­haust­ed, and the soon­er we de­fault on our oblig­a­tions and have to turn to the IMF," Dukha­ran warned.

Com­ment­ing on the coun­try's ris­ing lev­el of in­debt­ed­ness, Dukha­ran said T&T's lev­el of debt was al­ready "around TT$ 120 bil­lion and ris­ing steadi­ly."

"We ex­ceed the sus­tain­abil­i­ty thresh­old by about TTD30 bil­lion which means our debt lev­el is 33 per cent over and above that which is deemed sus­tain­able," she said.

"An­oth­er in­di­ca­tion of our debt’s un­sus­tain­abil­i­ty is the fact that we have had a pri­ma­ry fis­cal deficit since 2016—this means that we are bor­row­ing just to pay the in­ter­est on our ex­ist­ing debt."

Dukha­ran said de­spite this, the coun­try con­tin­ues to pile on more debt.

"This is a gross­ly un­sus­tain­able and un­healthy sit­u­a­tion and it means that the clock is now tick­ing even faster un­til we can­not re­pay our debts, and there is a de­fault.

"Our debt is spec­u­la­tive and risky. And it is my view that very soon, S&P (af­ter hav­ing down­grad­ed last year al­ready) will down­grade us to junk, just as Moody’s had done. One may be able to ar­gue that debt in TTD is not so risky since the au­thor­i­ties can print the TTD they need to re­pay the debt.

"But what about the USD de­nom­i­nat­ed debt we have tak­en on?" Dukha­ran asked.

She said that the coun­try was forced to bor­row in US be­cause the TT dol­lar "is about 40 per cent over­val­ued."

"When the of­fi­cial rate is about TTD6.80 but the black mar­ket rate is about TTD7.50-TTD8.00 for USD1.00, and this (over­val­ued) of­fi­cial ex­change rate is de­cid­ed strict­ly by the au­thor­i­ties, and not even par­tial­ly by de­mand and sup­ply forces, it means that the au­thor­i­ties have de­lib­er­ate­ly, con­scious­ly de­cid­ed to sub­sidise im­ports and pe­nalise ex­ports. This means we will earn less USD," she said.

"This means we will con­tin­ue to have a net out­flow of USD. This means that we are more like­ly to run out of USD faster than if the TTD was not over­val­ued. And the ex­cuse for main­tain­ing an over­val­ued cur­ren­cy that the au­thor­i­ties al­ways use—that they wish to pro­tect the pur­chas­ing pow­er of the poor man, as a de­val­ued TTD will mean con­sumers will pay more for their im­port­ed gro­ceries for ex­am­ple is an in­valid ex­cuse be­cause im­porters have al­ready priced in a de­val­u­a­tion and are pric­ing their goods based on the black mar­ket rate they al­ready pay for USD," she said.

Dukha­ran re­called the Prime Min­is­ters in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia's Khamal Georges where he said his rea­son for not de­valu­ing the TT dol­lar was be­cause peo­ple were hoard­ing US in hopes of mak­ing a quick re­turn.

"This ex­cuse al­so holds no wa­ter, as hold­ers of USD will hold on to USD even more when the TTD is over­val­ued, and this in­cen­tive to buy and hold USD will not ex­ist if the TTD was not so over­val­ued. The au­thor­i­ties have cre­at­ed the per­fect in­cen­tive for a black mar­ket for USD, and for peo­ple to buy and hold USD in the hope of a de­val­u­a­tion," Dukha­ran said.

Browne:

For­mer min­is­ter in the min­istry of fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne shared Dukha­ran's view.

Browne al­so ques­tioned the wis­dom of loans in US cur­ren­cy.

"Bor­row­ing in for­eign cur­ren­cy makes sense if it is tied to be used to buy for­eign in­puts to im­prove forex gen­er­a­tion. So that speaks to the pur­pose of the loans. Bor­row­ing abroad to fi­nance road im­prove­ments/resur­fac­ing is a no-no.

"Bor­row­ing to fi­nance the con­struc­tion/ex­pan­sion of ANR air­port in To­ba­go makes sense on­ly if there is a valid tourism im­prove­ment plan. No gov­ern­ment in the last 50 years has had one," he added.

Browne said that for­eign bor­row­ing in­creas­es the de­mand for US dol­lars and places ad­di­tion­al stress on the sys­tem since there isn’t enough to go around. This cre­ates a self-re­in­forc­ing dy­nam­ic that put pres­sure on the forex sys­tem, in­clud­ing the rate.

He said that T&T was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a pri­ma­ry deficit on an on­go­ing ba­sis.

"Mean­ing that rev­enue is in­suf­fi­cient to meet op­er­a­tional costs and debt ser­vice. That means to meet debt ser­vice re­quire­ment we are bor­row­ing. This is un­ac­cept­able gen­er­al­ly but tol­er­a­ble in the short term if there is a way out or a method­ol­o­gy.

"There is none that I can see ex­cept that we are wait­ing for a turn­around in the en­er­gy sec­tor which is not go­ing to hap­pen any time soon."

Browne said that any bor­row­ing in­creas­es the debt to GDP ra­tio.

"What is bad about the in­creas­ing debt to GDP ra­tio over the last five years is that the for­eign debt com­po­nent is ris­ing at an alarm­ing rate. The dif­fi­cul­ty with this is the com­pe­ti­tion for for­eign ex­change with the non-en­er­gy sec­tor and the ex­po­sure that it brings to forex risk if the rate de­pre­ci­ates as it must in these con­di­tions," he said.

"The for­eign debt load is what pushed the clo­sure of the re­fin­ery as that bur­den would have fall­en to the State.

"Any for­eign bor­row­ing at this time must be ad­e­quate­ly jus­ti­fied from a busi­ness and eco­nom­ic an­gle. In the scheme of things po­lit­i­cal, the two To­ba­go seats are im­por­tant to the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion. But that is not an eco­nom­ic jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. It is a po­lit­i­cal one," Browne said.

Bharath:

An­oth­er for­mer min­is­ter, Vas­ant Bharath al­so agreed with both Browne and Dukha­ran.

"They are hav­ing to bor­row as there are no new rev­enue streams to re­place that lost from low­er pro­duc­tion lev­els of oil and gas as well as de­pressed prices," Bharath said in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia.

"In fact, we are now bor­row­ing to pay in­ter­est on ex­ist­ing debt, rob­bing the pro­duc­tive sec­tor of much-need­ed cap­i­tal."

"Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it is the first time since 1986 that the econ­o­my has suf­fered three con­sec­u­tive years of neg­a­tive growth and all fi­nan­cial pro­jec­tions point to a fourth. "To­tal ex­ports have de­clined by over $6bn for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to June 2019 cf the same pe­ri­od in 2018. There has been ze­ro FDI in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor and forex re­serves have dwin­dled to US$7bn from US$11.4bn. The sit­u­a­tion is dire. At the cur­rent us­age rate four or pos­si­bly five years are left," he warned.

Source: https://www.guardian.co.tt/news/govts-f ... 8420c59b8c

[zoom rader]

^^^^ doh post dem ting nah

PNM ppl don't understand dem money ting

[Redman]

Nice PNM saved the day !

Too bad they wont around when UNC ran the country on sub $12US a day in the mid 1990s

We all were around to see how the UNC ran things with oil at $90+

Yuh does get vex when they blame the last administration.....but yuh talking 1990s.

Isn’t 2010 more Germaine to 2020 ..than 1990?

[zoom rader]

Nice PNM saved the day !

Too bad they wont around when UNC ran the country on sub $12US a day in the mid 1990s

We all were around to see how the UNC ran things with oil at $90+

Yuh does get vex when they blame the last administration.....but yuh talking 1990s.

Isn’t 2010 more Germaine to 2020 ..than 1990?

PNM take blame for anything?

Or are they squeaky clean and the righteous god given government.?

[eliteauto]

An overview of the UNC's economic plan
https://www.facebook.com/10638538621874 ... 918758979/

[zoom rader]

An overview of the UNC's economic plan
https://www.facebook.com/10638538621874 ... 918758979/

Ok

[pugboy]

kamala really throw down stuey ?

[randolphinshan]

kamala really throw down stuey ?

The only thing she could throw down is a glass of rum

[Redman]

Nice PNM saved the day !

Too bad they wont around when UNC ran the country on sub $12US a day in the mid 1990s

We all were around to see how the UNC ran things with oil at $90+

Yuh does get vex when they blame the last administration.....but yuh talking 1990s.

Isn’t 2010 more Germaine to 2020 ..than 1990?

PNM take blame for anything?

Or are they squeaky clean and the righteous god given government.?

Of course they arent
but bleating about oil prices in 95-2000 is not relevant. (The average 95-2000 was 18+ with 2000 being 27+)
Especially when you then complain about when 2010-15 referenced, (WTI average $76)
The average 2015-20 is about $48.

[zoom rader]

Meanwhile Yams to come in all yuh MC

https://newsday.co.tt/2020/03/09/tt-to- ... Gq_BSAfcis

[Dizzy28]

A lack of an alternative source of carbs was always one our our nation's biggest problems. Good move by Rowley. However Ghana is too close and may be a risk if something was to happen on this side of the world. Maybe he could have seen if he could have gotten it from Mozambique or Madagascar instead.

Always a foresightful one that man!!

[De Dragon]

Nice PNM saved the day !

Too bad they wont around when UNC ran the country on sub $12US a day in the mid 1990s

We all were around to see how the UNC ran things with oil at $90+

Yuh does get vex when they blame the last administration.....but yuh talking 1990s.

Isn’t 2010 more Germaine to 2020 ..than 1990?

PNM take blame for anything?

Or are they squeaky clean and the righteous god given government.?

Of course they arent
but bleating about oil prices in 95-2000 is not relevant. (The average 95-2000 was 18+ with 2000 being 27+)
Especially when you then complain about when 2010-15 referenced, (WTI average $76)
The average 2015-20 is about $48.

The PNM is probably the only government in the world that may be happy for the Covid-19 pandemic, because to their simpleton supporters like you, stink eye, and Tokesy, it looks like there ineptitude now appears to have a cause, and thus their favourite tactic of throwing their hands up in the air and claiming that it is out of their hands can now be used, never mind that we were on a sharp downward spiral long before.

[hydroep]

Bharath: Things going from bad to worse
Clint Chan Tack

FORMER minister in the ministry of finance Vasant Bharath expressed concern on Wednesday that the precipitous drop in world oil and gas prices and the threat of the spread of the covid19 “only serve to exacerbate an already difficult economic situation in TT.”

Together with a skyrocketing cost of living and four years of negative or zero growth, Bharath said, this “will undoubtedly further impact negatively on the lives of our citizens.”

He was unimpressed by the response by Finance Minister Colm Imbert on Tuesday about how Government will deal with falling oil prices and coronavirus.

Bharath claimed Imbert’s comments about increased borrowing, a possible withdrawal from the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund and the sale of state assets reflected “paucity of financial and economic competence at the highest levels of government.”

He described Imbert’s response as that of a bookeeper, which lacked the necessary imagination and financial prescription that “would give the population any comfort that their future was in good hands.”

Bharath said the price shock was a combination of the coronavirus “which has caused entire economies to shut down,” the Russia-Saudi Arabia oil price war and an oversupply of shale oil and gas from the US. He explained this will result in the movement of foreign direct investment from countries affected by covid19, global value chains being affected with the shutdown of factories, commodity prices dropping and an impact on the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors.

He warned that increasing TT’s debt levels without any productive returns will only increase the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio to unsustainable levels. Bharath said the IMF suggested the optimum ratio for TT is 60 per cent. He claimed Imbert’s statements suggest that ratio could be heading to 70 per cent.

Bharath suggested increasing private-sector support to keep the economy moving and people employed; boost spending on health systems and citizen education to contain the virus; and the Central Bank standing ready to reduce interest rates to boost economic activity, as some measures to address these challenges.

https://newsday.co.tt/2020/03/12/bharath-things-going-from-bad-to-worse/