JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Moonilal: PNM borrowing to keep Treasury afloat

by

Radhica De Silva
36 days ago
20250425

Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has ac­cused the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion of reck­less bor­row­ing to cov­er up a de­plet­ed Trea­sury, claim­ing the gov­ern­ment is drain­ing the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial re­serves.

Speak­ing at a cam­paign meet­ing at Vickar's carpark, Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore, in the mar­gin­al Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy on Thurs­day night, Dr Mooni­lal al­leged that the gov­ern­ment has al­ready bor­rowed half a bil­lion dol­lars through First Cit­i­zens Bank and Sco­tia­bank in less than a month.

“I have two of them. Save that date — March 20th. That’s al­most a month ago,” Dr Mooni­lal said. “They went to Cab­i­net and ap­proved an award of a man­date to First Cit­i­zens Bank to arrange and ful­ly un­der­write a fixed-rate loan on be­half of NID­CO — to fund in­fra­struc­ture projects.”

“They bor­rowed $250 mil­lion from FCB,” he con­tin­ued. “Ap­par­ent­ly, that wasn’t enough. They topped it up... Sco­tia­bank is now award­ed an­oth­er loan fa­cil­i­ty — this time not to NID­CO, but to NIPDEC — to fi­nance in­fra­struc­ture.”

Dr Mooni­lal ques­tioned the ur­gency, say­ing, “What in­fra­struc­ture are you go­ing to build in two weeks? This sec­ond loan is to the tune of 250 mil­lion dol­lars. They’ve tak­en $500 mil­lion!”

He fur­ther ques­tioned the ra­tio­nale for the sud­den bor­row­ing.

“They ran down the Trea­sury — the Trea­sury has no mon­ey. They are now bor­row­ing mon­ey just to keep mon­ey. They are bor­row­ing mon­ey to keep mon­ey, be­cause the Trea­sury has pot­holes," he quipped.

Turn­ing to the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial re­serves, he ac­cused the PNM of de­plet­ing the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF), which he said the for­mer UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion had built up.

“When we came in­to pow­er in 2010, the val­ue of that Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund was around TT$18 bil­lion,” he said. “When we left in Sep­tem­ber 2015, that val­ue had gone from $18 bil­lion to al­most $50 bil­lion. We added that. That is what we put.”

“We left them with $56 bil­lion in 2015. The da­ta shows that clear­ly,” he added. “And to­day, in 2024, we don’t even have $25 bil­lion.”

Dr Mooni­lal claimed that the for­mer UNC-led Cab­i­net nev­er touched the HSF.

“One thing about the Her­itage Fund: we nev­er touched it. In fact, I was in Cab­i­net for five years. We didn’t even know how to take mon­ey from it, be­cause it was nev­er in our minds to do so.”

He con­trast­ed that with what he said were mul­ti­ple PNM with­drawals.

“They took out: US$375 mil­lion, US$252 mil­lion, US$1 bil­lion, US$892 mil­lion. They de­plet­ed the Trea­sury. They ran down the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund.”

Dr Mooni­lal al­so raised con­cerns about Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s con­nec­tion to Sco­tia­bank.

“Sco­tia­bank — sounds fa­mil­iar? There’s some glob­al fi­nance group or some­thing as­so­ci­at­ed with Sco­tia­bank — linked to Stu­art Young, isn’t it? I think that’s a mat­ter of fact. That is cor­rect.”

He end­ed his speech by de­mand­ing trans­paren­cy: “Where did the $500 mil­lion go that they bor­rowed three weeks ago? In whose pock­et? Which con­trac­tor?”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the meet­ing were UNC deputy Jear­lene John, Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts, and Moru­ga/Table­land can­di­date Michelle Ben­jamin.

UNCGeneral ElectionsInstagram


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored