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Sunday, January 26, 2025

Where T&T got money

for COVID relief

Loans and grants from mul­ti­lat­er­al agen­cies

by

1394 days ago
20210404

This re­port by the Me­dia In­sti­tute of the Caribbean de­tails how mul­ti­lat­er­al agen­cies, in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment part­ners and glob­al donors have as­sist­ed T&T with its re­sponse to the chal­lenges and de­vel­op­ment im­pli­ca­tions of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic:

The first case of COVID-19 in Trinidad and To­ba­go was record­ed on March 12 when a na­tion­al who had re­turned from a trip to Switzer­land was di­ag­nosed. A clus­ter of cas­es in­volv­ing 40 of 68 na­tion­als who were on a Caribbean cruise was reg­is­tered on March 21. This was fol­lowed by the clo­sure of na­tion­al bor­ders for all but ap­proved air and sea trav­el on March 22.

On March 22, the dis­ease claimed its first vic­tim in the coun­try. The en­su­ing strin­gent mea­sures formed part of a na­tion­al lock­down that ex­empt­ed work­ers in se­lect­ed cat­e­gories and ac­tiv­i­ty in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

The im­pact of the bor­der clo­sure and pop­u­la­tion lock­down ex­ac­er­bat­ed a de­te­ri­o­rat­ing eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. In the first few months of the pan­dem­ic alone, pan­dem­ic re­lief pro­grammes cost the gov­ern­ment over US$150 mil­lion. And, by the end of the year, it was es­ti­mat­ed that at the cur­rent rate of eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion, the coun­try would have fall­en short on rev­enue by close to US$1.5 bil­lion by the end of the fis­cal year in Sep­tem­ber 2021.

The coun­try has how­ev­er ben­e­fit­ed from fi­nan­cial sup­port from sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al bene­fac­tors in or­der to bet­ter man­age its pan­dem­ic mea­sures.

In­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance from for­eign gov­ern­ments and in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions have con­tributed to­ward ef­forts by the coun­try to mit­i­gate the fi­nan­cial im­pact of the pan­dem­ic. It is es­ti­mat­ed that the coun­try has so far re­ceived US$500 mil­lion from ex­ter­nal sources in COVID-19 based eco­nom­ic re­lief.

Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca

The coun­try has re­ceived US$475,000 in aid from the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca’s Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) via the US Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This was an­nounced on April 24, 2020, by then US Am­bas­sador, Joseph Mon­del­lo.

The De­fence Force He­li­port Fa­cil­i­ty al­so re­ceived fund­ing worth US$88,692.81 from the Unit­ed States Em­bassy for COVID-19 re­lief in the ef­fort to ad­dress con­tin­u­ing is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with un­doc­u­ment­ed Venezue­lan mi­grants.

CAF—De­vel­op­ment Bank

of Latin Amer­i­ca

On April 3, 2020, the Cor­po­ra­cion An­d­i­na de Fo­men­to (CAF)—De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca do­nat­ed US$400,000 to the gov­ern­ment, to help in the fight against the spread of the pan­dem­ic.

On April 15, 2020, CAF al­so ap­proved a $US50 mil­lion loan to mit­i­gate the COVID-19 health cri­sis in the coun­try. Fol­low­ing this, the fi­nance min­istry an­nounced that on June 25, 2020, two loan agree­ments with CAF worth US$150 mil­lion, were signed.

The first loan of US$100 mil­lion was signed to pro­vide fi­nan­cial sup­port to the Gov­ern­ment’s eco­nom­ic pro­grammes for so­cial, eco­nom­ic, and fi­nan­cial emer­gen­cies gen­er­at­ed by COVID-19. The sec­ond loan of US$50 mil­lion was signed to strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s health care re­spons­es to the cri­sis.

Pan-Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion—PA­HO

On June 26, 2020, the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) Di­rec­tor, Dr Caris­sa F. Eti­enne not­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go would ben­e­fit from a US$5.3 mil­lion con­tri­bu­tion made by the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da to PA­HO’s COVID-19 re­sponse in the Caribbean.

The funds sought to as­sist in the train­ing of health­care work­ers/of­fi­cials and lab­o­ra­to­ry per­son­nel, strength­en da­ta col­lec­tion and sur­veil­lance in the form of equip­ment and per­son­nel, as well as the im­ple­men­ta­tion of risk com­mu­ni­ca­tion plans.

Ear­li­er in the year, the gov­ern­ment of Cana­da con­tributed CA$1.5 mil­lion to PA­HO­­—part of which was as­signed to Trinidad and To­ba­go for the pro­cure­ment of lap­tops to sup­port the col­lect­ing, pro­cess­ing, and analysing of clin­i­cal/epi­demi­o­log­i­cal da­ta, the train­ing of Crit­i­cal Care Nurs­es, and for med­ical equip­ment and sup­plies for iso­la­tion fa­cil­i­ties.

In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank—IDB

Trinidad and To­ba­go has US$124 mil­lion in IDB fi­nanc­ing for its re­sponse to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. On Ju­ly 2, 2020, the in­sti­tu­tion an­nounced that it grant­ed a US$100 mil­lion loan to the coun­try to fi­nance its re­sponse to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and pro­mote an eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery af­ter the pan­dem­ic ends.

Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease on the IDB’s web­site, “Trinidad and To­ba­go will use part of the mon­ey to sup­port house­hold in­come and busi­ness liq­uid­i­ty dur­ing the pan­dem­ic through tax re­funds, salary grants, food stamps and rental as­sis­tance. It will al­so use the loan to buy med­ical equip­ment and hire med­ical staff. The loan will al­so go to im­ple­ment­ing the Fair Trad­ing Act (FTA), which in­volves pro­mot­ing com­pe­ti­tion in lo­cal mar­kets, low­er­ing the cost of es­sen­tial goods for con­sumers, and in­creas­ing pri­vate sec­tor pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.”

The 20-year, dol­lar-de­nom­i­nat­ed loan comes with a 5.5-year grace pe­ri­od and charges an in­ter­est rate based on Li­bor.

IDB—CARPHA

On June 5, 2020, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) ap­proved a grant worth US$750,000 to the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA). The grant seeks to pro­mote re­gion­al health se­cu­ri­ty through the co­or­di­na­tion of the re­gion­al health re­sponse to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and to sup­port re­gion­al in­te­grat­ed ef­forts to ad­dress com­mon health and eco­nom­ic is­sues im­pact­ing the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of Caribbean economies.

It was made avail­able through the IDB Japan Spe­cial Fund and will be used for specif­i­cal­ly the en­hance­ment of Lab­o­ra­to­ry Re­sponse Ca­pac­i­ty at CARPHA, mo­bi­lize surge and strength­en re­al-time dis­ease sur­veil­lance and re­sponse through the CARPHA Re­gion­al Trav­el­ers Health Pro­gram (THP) for all 26 of the Agency’s Mem­ber States. Ac­tiv­i­ties un­der that Grant are ex­pect­ed to kick off from Ju­ly 2020 and run un­til June 2022.

World Bank

The World Bank, via its web­site on Ju­ly 8, 2020, an­nounced that it had ap­proved US$20 mil­lion for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s COVID-19 Emer­gency Re­sponse Project that seeks to strength­en na­tion­al sys­tems for pub­lic health pre­pared­ness.

Tah­seen Sayed, World Bank Coun­try Di­rec­tor for the Caribbean stat­ed: “It will as­sist in pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal med­ical sup­plies and equip­ment and will strength­en the ca­pac­i­ty of the health sec­tor.”

Ac­cord­ing to the World Bank, the Gov­ern­ment’s plan fo­cus­es on the pro­cure­ment of key med­ical sup­plies need­ed for test­ing and di­ag­no­sis, in­puts for in­fec­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol in health fa­cil­i­ties, per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment for staff and the pro­vi­sion of train­ing on ap­pro­pri­ate clin­i­cal care and safe waste dis­pos­al. The terms of the loan state a ma­tu­ri­ty pe­ri­od of eight years with a grace pe­ri­od of 7.5 years.

Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank—CDB

Re­gion­al­ly, the CDB has ap­proved “a mul­ti-pronged fi­nan­cial pack­age to help our mem­bers, which in­cludes pol­i­cy-based loans of US$140 mil­lion; emer­gency loans to­talling US$67 mil­lion to sev­en coun­tries; and US$3 mil­lion pro­grammes to pro­vide es­sen­tial per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment for Caribbean health care and front­line work­ers in 14 coun­tries.”

Of this, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­ceived 2,624 Tyvek Suits, 9,372 Sur­gi­cal Masks, 5,074 Gog­gles, 8,247 Iso­la­tion Gowns, 18,744 Ni­trate Gloves and 2,624 KN95 Masks.

In the cul­tur­al in­dus­tries sec­tor, the CDB through its CI­IF Emer­gency Grant Pro­gramme has pro­vid­ed US$100,000 in emer­gency grants for cul­tur­al in­dus­try prac­ti­tion­ers im­pact­ed by the can­cel­la­tion of events due to the pan­dem­ic. The coun­try saw 119 ap­pli­ca­tions to the pro­gramme, the most of any mem­ber state.

Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund

In 2020, the coun­try with­drew ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$1.2 bil­lion from its sov­er­eign wealth fund, the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF). That sum cov­ers the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, to De­cem­ber 31, 2020, and the mon­ey was drawn down in the fis­cal years 2020 and 2021.

In fis­cal 2020, US$900 mil­lion was with­drawn from the Fund and so far for fis­cal 2021, US$300 mil­lion has been with­drawn for bud­get sup­port.

The HSF has been a cush­ion for T&T’s econ­o­my as the Gov­ern­ment has used it when it has strug­gled with rev­enue to meet salaries and oth­er bud­get­ed ex­pen­di­ture. As of Sep­tem­ber 2020, the Fund stood at US$5.73 bil­lion.

To mit­i­gate the ef­fects of COVID-19 on the econ­o­my, the Gov­ern­ment ini­ti­at­ed a com­pre­hen­sive stim­u­lus pack­age that need­ed fund­ing—some of which came from the HSF.

On March 26, 2020, an amend­ment to the HSF Act was passed in Par­lia­ment to al­low for with­drawals of up to US$1.5 bil­lion dur­ing the fi­nan­cial year, in the event of a health cri­sis, a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter or a pre­cip­i­tous drop in bud­get­ed rev­enue.

—The Me­dia In­sti­tute of the Caribbean is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­source and train­ing fa­cil­i­ty for the Caribbean that seeks to em­pow­er Caribbean jour­nal­ists by de­vel­op­ing their jour­nal­is­tic tech­niques with an em­pha­sis on in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism.


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