CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Oropouche West MP Dave Tan­coo has ac­cused Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert of, "try­ing to play word se­man­tics with the pop­u­la­tion when he claims that we don’t have a forex cri­sis but a short­age."

How­ev­er, MP Tan­coo said the facts speak for them­selves.

"Busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als still ex­pe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty in se­cur­ing forex, as the econ­o­my con­tin­ues to strug­gle SME’S (Small and Mi­cro En­ter­pris­es) fight for sur­vival, while the pover­ty line ex­tends to in­clude more cit­i­zens dai­ly," the Oropouche West MP ar­gues.

MP Tan­coo was com­ment­ing on Min­is­ter Im­bert’s re­as­sur­ance to Ja­maican busi­ness­men that Trinidad and To­ba­go has eight and a half months of im­port cov­er, with­out count­ing the US re­serves in the HSF.

"How­ev­er, he ig­nores the fact that our for­eign ex­change in­flows have slowed dras­ti­cal­ly with the clo­sure of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery and the re­sul­tant mul­ti­ple plant clo­sures at Point Lisas," he said.

Ac­cord­ing to MP Tan­coo:

“While the Min­is­ter seeks the in­ter­est of the large busi­ness sec­tor, the SMEs—which are 91% of all reg­is­tered busi­ness­es in our coun­try—and small traders and en­tre­pre­neurs suf­fer. The or­di­nary cit­i­zen who re­quires forex for trav­el or uni­ver­si­ty tu­ition fees abroad for their chil­dren have to stand in bank lines dai­ly for a max­i­mum of $US 200 at a time!”

He added: “Pre­tend­ing that we do not have a prob­lem is not a cred­i­ble fis­cal strat­e­gy, and it is not one that that would in­stil con­fi­dence in his com­pe­tence to ably steer our econ­o­my through the present and im­mi­nent chal­lenges.”