An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day told the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that T&T has not signed a loan agree­ment with the US Ex­Im Bank and T&T. 

In Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, dur­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s ques­tion seg­ment, MP for Oropouche West, Dav­en­dranath  Tan­coo asked for the key fea­tures of the re­cent loan agree­ment be­tween the US Ex­im­bank and T&T val­ued at US$500 mil­lions.  

Dr. Row­ley re­peat­ed twice that there is no loan agree­ment and stat­ed that a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) was ex­e­cut­ed which pro­vides the gov­ern­ment with the op­tion to ac­cess fi­nanc­ing to fund equip­ment projects and pro­grammes. 

He said the MOU in­volves goods and ser­vices from sup­pli­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers and ser­vice providers in the US up to US $500 mil­lion. 

“At this time, no loans have been ac­cessed un­der this MOU since ac­cess to this fa­cil­i­ty is in its ini­tial plan­ning stages. The ar­rival of the chair­man and pres­i­dent of the US Ex­Im Bank arose out of my vis­it to Wash­ing­ton a few months ago, which caused an up­roar on the oth­er side,” Row­ley said. 

Speak­ing at the MOU sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny last month, Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Colm Im­bert, said the pro­posed ini­tial use of the funds would be fo­cused on mar­itime pa­trol ves­sels.

“We are look­ing at en­hanc­ing our ca­pa­bil­i­ty in our mar­itime do­main, with search and res­cue and pa­trolling. And that’s where the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­spec­tive comes in. So the ini­tial thrust of the re­la­tion­ship is to fi­nance equip­ment and ser­vices and tech­ni­cal sup­port with re­spect to man­ag­ing and se­cur­ing our mar­itime bor­ders,” said Im­bert.

The fa­cil­i­ty, Im­bert said, would al­so be used for re­new­able en­er­gy projects and a clause has been in­sert­ed so that terms for ad­di­tion­al us­es could be added.

Chair of the US Ex­Im Bank, Re­ta Jo Lewis, said while typ­i­cal­ly the bank would not grant fund­ing for mil­i­tary equip­ment, T&T had prop­er­ly stat­ed a case for an in­vest­ment in such equip­ment.

“We have an ex­cep­tion where­by we can fi­nance projects that are go­ing to be used for dual use...We un­der­stand that there is this pri­or­i­ty for the coun­try and that the goods and ser­vices that would be need­ed are the types of items that Ex­Im can fi­nance in this sec­tor,” said Jo Lewis.

In Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Tan­coo al­so asked a ques­tion about a re­cent loan agree­ment be­tween the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) and T&T for some US$300 mil­lion for the re­struc­tur­ing of WASA.

The prime min­is­ter again clar­i­fied that there was no loan agree­ment be­tween T&T and WASA. 

“In­stead, the Gov­ern­ment en­tered in­to an agree­ment on March 7, 2023, with the IDB for the es­tab­lish­ment of a con­di­tion­al cred­it line for in­vest­ment projects. Un­der this agree­ment the Gov­ern­ment has an op­tion to ac­cess fi­nanc­ing of the amount up to US$315 mil­lion via loan agree­ments over 10 years. Each ap­pli­ca­tion for fi­nanc­ing will be dealt with on a case-by-case ba­sis over the next nine years and on­ly, if nec­es­sary,” Row­ley de­tailed. 

He fur­ther stat­ed that on the same day last year, a loan agree­ment was ex­e­cut­ed for US$80 mil­lion to fund projects, with­in the na­tion­al wa­ter trans­for­ma­tion sec­tor project, un­der this arrange­ment, which is on­go­ing.