Why are CL Financial (CLF) investors not benefitting from a payout level of 70 cents on the dollar?
That's the question Opposition Leader Keith Rowley put to the People's Partnership Government yesterday on the 2010-2011 budget's proposals on Clico. He said the budget's plan worked for payments to CLF investors worked out to 75 cents on the dollar. He queried what system was being implemented to ensure beneficiaries benefit from any increase in asset value over time during the 20-year period in question. Rowley said he was amused at Finance Minister Winston Dookeran's condemnation of the regulators in the CLF issue.
He said Dookeran was Central Bank Governor and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was part of the UNC Government in 2001 when then Attorney General Ramesh Maharaj raised concerns about Clico with the DPP. Rowley said Maharaj's concerns were dismissed. He said the budget's concessions for the HCU would trigger calls for similar bailouts for other places. Rowley said while Dookeran had dropped the PNM's rapid rail project, he announced a tunnel project in the budget "of far greater cost to provide quicker access to bake and shark, if you live in Tunapuna."
He said the new plan also included a bridge to Tobago. Rowley said: "I was sure I had heard the last of that foolishness when a carpetbagger approached a PNM Government many years ago." On plans to restructure the URP, Rowley said: "When we are told by the Minister of Labour, who himself spent most of his professional life representing labourers, he has concerns about 'questionable employment' within the URP and that he intends to resolve these concerns by ensuring that people who are known to be PNM and having the lion's share are removed, we become acutely concerned."
Rowley added: "That is not what fairness and good governance is all about. Is it that the minister will go around and whimsically decide who is a PNM – with no reference or knowledge as to who those persons may have voted for – and to deny those persons an opportunity to benefit from a social programme for which they may be qualified, only because he considers that they look like PNM? "This is an unholy and dangerous development in its own right. This situation is further exacerbated by the fact the UNC-led coalition promised these very people that they would not discriminate, if they were elected to office." Rowley said, calling for the PP to desist from discriminating against PNM supporters. He said the same minister had said before the budget that the minimum wage would have increased.
"Instead, he was treated with disdain by the Finance Minister, who in one short sentence said the minimum wage would be reviewed," Rowley noted. Rowley called on Government to avoid cutting social programmes in the "impending scramble for revenues." Warning Government not to walk this road, Rowley said: "Quite apart from the immense social dislocation and hardship which is likely to follow such cuts, Government needs to be aware that when they think about cutting back on these programmes they may well be setting in train forces which will cause economic growth to fall." He said the problem for T&T was the "absolute lack of trust" in the new Government and the absence of the necessary confidence needed to go forward. "Not only did the change in Government not deliver the magical new policies but the deceitful and shameless reneging on campaign commitments has indelibly labelled the Government as questionable and untrustworthy," Rowley added.
"They never had any well thought out, cohesive and sensible plans and they clearly are now trying to make them up as they go along," he added.