Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, said yes­ter­day, al­though he does not have an over­sight role over the op­er­a­tions of the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, he will in­ves­ti­gate the cur­ren­cy as­pect of the mat­ter in­volv­ing the state-owned ho­tel.

In a com­ment post­ed on a so­cial me­dia plat­form, Im­bert not­ed, "The Hy­att re­cent­ly an­nounced a con­tentious de­ci­sion to stop ac­cept­ing TT-dol­lar cash, while ac­cept­ing US-dol­lar and ster­ling cash, which it quick­ly re­scind­ed. As cor­po­ra­tion sole, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has no over­sight over the op­er­a­tions og=f the Hy­att but will in­ves­ti­gate the cur­ren­cy as­pect of the mat­ter."

On Sat­ur­day, Hy­att Re­gency post­ed a no­tice on its Face­book page in which the ho­tel in­di­cat­ed that ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 1, all trans­ac­tions at the ho­tel and con­fer­ence cen­tre would pri­mar­i­ly be cash-free for “a faster, smoother, and more se­cure ex­pe­ri­ence,” adding, “We ac­cept all ma­jor cred­it cards, and on­ly US dol­lars, British Pounds, and Eu­ros, so you can fo­cus on en­joy­ing your stay.”

The post gen­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive re­ac­tion on the plat­form, which led to it be­ing re­moved. Fol­low­ing the re­moval of the post, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad, Michael Hoop­er said, “A mes­sage re­gard­ing cash­less pay­ment op­tions at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad ho­tel was pre­ma­ture­ly dis­trib­uted with in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion. At this time, we will not be im­ple­ment­ing any changes to our pay­ment process. We wish to apol­o­gise for any con­fu­sion or in­con­ve­nience caused."

On Sun­day, speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence, Op­po­si­tion chief whip, David Lee called on Im­bert "who is re­spon­si­ble for that Hy­att ho­tel, to come clean with this na­tion to tell us why would Hy­att want to charge the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go...in US dol­lars."

The 428-­room Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad on Wright­son Rd in Port-of-Spain, is owned by Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UDe­COTT), a prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment com­pa­ny that is 100 per cent owned by the Gov­ern­ment. The com­pa­ny falls un­der the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter. The ho­tel is man­aged by the Hy­att group.

The 1973 Min­is­ter of Fi­nance (In­cor­po­ra­tion) Act states, "The Min­is­ter for the time be­ing shall be a cor­po­ra­tion sole by the name of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and all prop­er­ty trans­ferred to and vest­ed in the Min­is­ter by this Act or oth­er­wise ac­quired by the Min­is­ter shall be held in trust for the State."

Mean­while, speak­ing on CNC3's The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an Fuad Khan called on the Gov­ern­ment to abol­ish the coun­try's Ex­change Con­trol Act, which re­stricts the buy­ing, sell­ing, bor­row­ing or lend­ing of any for­eign cur­ren­cy to deal­ers who are au­tho­rised by the Cen­tral Bank.

Khan said the small man in this coun­try can­not ac­cess for­eign ex­change "be­cause the Cen­tral Bank has giv­en that pow­er to an elite crowd of peo­ple who have share­hold­ing in­ter­est in the banks and who own fi­nance hous­es and cam­bios."