DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul is­sued a stark warn­ing to the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) over its per­ceived al­le­giance to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) “Coali­tion of In­ter­est.”

Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in St Joseph on Tues­day night, Dhan­paul said the UNC’s pro­posed fis­cal poli­cies could lead to pub­lic sec­tor job loss­es and long-term eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty.

He said the back­pay and wage bill hike fromthe par­ty’s promise of a ten per cent in­crease in pub­lic sec­tor wages and salaries could cost at least $12 bil­lion. This would be com­pound­ed by pro­posed cuts to rev­enue streams, in­clud­ing a five per cent re­duc­tion in cor­po­ra­tion tax, elim­i­na­tion of prop­er­ty tax, ad­just­ments to the VAT base, and re­peal of the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act — mea­sures which could strip the coun­try of near­ly $5 bil­lion in in­come, he said.

Dhan­paul ac­cused the op­po­si­tion of prac­tis­ing “zom­bie eco­nom­ics.”

“Fi­nan­cial un­der­tak­ers go to the eco­nom­ic grave­yards and ex­hume dead eco­nom­ic poli­cies and strate­gies,” he said, claim­ing that such pop­ulist ideas have failed glob­al­ly and would bank­rupt T&T.

Dhan­paul pre­dict­ed that if even five of the UNC’s pro­pos­als are im­ple­ment­ed, the coun­try could face a fis­cal deficit amount­ing to 15 per cent of GDP. He al­so warned that the UNC would strug­gle to raise the es­ti­mat­ed $20 bil­lion need­ed to fund its plans, whether from do­mes­tic or in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

“Maybe they can beg, bor­row or steal,” he said, urg­ing the union to be wary.

Dhan­paul fur­ther as­sert­ed that Cus­toms and Ex­cise and Board and In­land Rev­enue em­ploy­ees would be fac­ing po­ten­tial job loss­es un­der a UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He al­so ques­tioned the UNC’s si­lence on the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund, sug­gest­ing it might be tar­get­ed as a fund­ing source.

He ref­er­enced plans by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to di­vest state en­ter­pris­es with­in her first 90 days in of­fice and im­ple­ment a debt work­out strat­e­gy — moves he warned could re­sult in a fire sale of pub­lic as­sets.

“The Gov­ern­ment should not be in busi­ness. Let the pri­vate sec­tor and the busi­ness­men do the busi­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said, warn­ing of an­oth­er “feed­ing fren­zy” in­volv­ing “friends, fam­i­ly and fi­nanciers.”

In a di­rect ap­peal to pub­lic ser­vants, Dhan­paul said: “I used to be a mem­ber of the PSA, so I say, com­rades, your mem­bers are head­ing for short-term gain with long-term pain. Com­rades do not let them chain you up. Com­rades, you’re go­ing to lose your jobs in an IMF pro­gramme. Com­rades, call me ur­gent­ly.”

Com­ment­ing on what he de­scribed as the UNC’s vague fi­nanc­ing as­sur­ances, Dhan­paul said the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s promise to “find the mon­ey” is not a fi­nanc­ing strat­e­gy.

He al­so de­fend­ed for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert against al­le­ga­tions of mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing $2.6 bil­lion, af­ter dis­crep­an­cies in pub­lic ac­counts were flagged by Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass for the 2023 fi­nan­cial year.

“Don’t let any­body fool you that Tom Cruise came down the side of the Fi­nan­cial Com­plex in Mis­sion Im­pos­si­ble style and rode off with $2.6 bil­lion. No! And I will say this – it is phys­i­cal­ly im­pos­si­ble to steal $2.6 bil­lion or $2 in pub­lic sec­tor ac­counts,” he said.

“The dis­crep­an­cy in the fig­ures were caused by, as I said, a tech­ni­cal glitch caused by a soft­ware prob­lem. It was com­pound­ed by a tim­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion is­sue among the tech­nocrats at the Min­istry of Fi­nance.”

Dhan­paul, who dis­missed the al­le­ga­tion as ridicu­lous, added:“This is a next thing that is re­al­ly, re­al­ly an­noy­ing, ‘Im­bert thief the $2.6 bil­lion’. I mean, he short, but you could see if Im­bert walk­ing out with $2.6 bil­lion.

“The on­ly mis­take Min­is­ter Im­bert made is that, and he ad­mit­ted it, is that he called the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al. That’s a no-no. You don’t call the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance. In fact, I’ll tell you this, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance al­so has no con­trol over what goes in­to the pub­lic ac­counts. None!”

Dhan­paul warned that if the fis­cal deficit ex­pands, it will ex­ert sig­nif­i­cant pres­sure on mon­e­tary pol­i­cy, po­ten­tial­ly forc­ing the Cen­tral Bank to raise in­ter­est rates in re­sponse to in­fla­tion which could dri­ve up mort­gage rates and im­pact per­son­al lend­ing.

He al­so flagged po­ten­tial threats to the coun­try’s cur­rent ac­count, for­eign re­serves, ex­ports, im­ports, and the ex­change rate, say­ing all could come un­der stress.

Dhan­paul said when the per­fect storm oc­curs and there is ur­gent need for bal­ance of pay­ment sup­port, the fi­nal op­tion will be the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, which will see aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures im­posed and pub­lic sec­tor job loss­es.

Ef­forts to reach PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.