Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has promised to re­lease a re­port that will ex­pose what she de­scribes as a “forex car­tel” in this coun­try.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing at the Red House, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Min­is­ters of Fi­nance, Trade In­vest­ment and Tourism and Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment have been man­dat­ed to bring to her a re­port on for­eign ex­change dis­tri­b­u­tion and leak­ages over the last 10 years.

The Prime Min­is­ter said she heard the cries from the pop­u­la­tion ask­ing where the coun­try’s for­eign ex­change was go­ing. She said the re­port will ex­pose the main users and fa­cil­i­ta­tors of forex.

“So we need to know where the forex went, to whom it went, why it went, how it went and how it was de­ployed. Those re­ports will come to us, and we will share them with you. This re­port will be made pub­lic to iden­ti­fy the main users, main fa­cil­i­ta­tors of this un­fair dis­tri­b­u­tion and ex­plain to the pub­lic how this en­tire forex dis­tri­b­u­tion car­tel and con­spir­a­cy be­tween cer­tain op­er­a­tives and busi­ness­es were func­tion­ing,” she ex­plained.

In 2015, Jwala Ram­bar­ran was dis­missed as Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor by the then PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. This hap­pened af­ter Ram­bar­ran dis­closed the names of the largest users of for­eign ex­change in T&T and the amounts of for­eign ex­change they used.

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again un­der­scored her de­ci­sion to re­strict Gov­ern­ment spend­ing on ad­ver­tis­ing. Speak­ing di­rect­ly to the jour­nal­ists in the room, the PM said, “I know you all are in the me­dia and you need your ad­ver­tis­ing but it should not be ex­ces­sive Gov­ern­ment spend­ing on ad­ver­tis­ing when there are peo­ple who can­not buy a meal or a bot­tle of ba­by milk for their chil­dren.”

She al­so said she has frozen all Gov­ern­ment hir­ing and the is­su­ing of Gov­ern­ment con­tracts.

“Just for a time un­til we get the new boards in­stalled, and we look at what has hap­pened and what is the best way for­ward.”

On the is­sue of State boards, the Prime Min­is­ter de­scribed some as “run­away hors­es” that need to be reined in.

“Ex­ist­ing State boards and CEOs paid out hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in the days be­tween elec­tion day and elec­tion night and the day min­is­ters were in­stalled and some are con­tin­u­ing to do so with­out the man­date from the peo­ple.”

She added, “So, they are con­tin­u­ing to work as if there was no elec­tion and con­tin­u­ing to do things as though there is not a change in ad­min­is­tra­tion and there­fore they are ap­ply­ing the same old, same old, same old and there­fore, can get noth­ing done for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said tax­pay­ers can­not con­tin­ue to bail out State en­ter­pris­es.

She al­so an­nounced that the full CLI­CO Com­mis­sion of En­quiry Re­port would fi­nal­ly be made pub­lic. That re­port was sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) in 2016. The Com­mis­sion of En­quiry came to an end in 2013.

“That CLI­CO re­port, we will lay it in Par­lia­ment. It was re­al­ly in­tol­er­a­ble that the Gov­ern­ment hid that CLI­CO re­port from the Par­lia­ment and ,there­fore, the peo­ple of T&T. That was one of the great­est eco­nom­ic melt­downs that we’ve had and there­fore we de­serve to know, why, what, when, where, how and what rec­om­men­da­tions there are to pre­vent such con­ta­gion from tak­ing place in our econ­o­my.”