Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has la­belled Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s claim that the UNC will de­val­ue the TT dol­lar if elect­ed in­to gov­ern­ment a “scare tac­tic.”

Speak­ing at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) pub­lic meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do on Wednes­day, Young claimed that un­der a UNC-led gov­ern­ment, the TT dol­lar could be de­val­ued to fif­teen dol­lars to one US dol­lar.

He al­so warned that UNC’s cam­paign promis­es were not a “bag of good­ies,” but “poi­son” and would ul­ti­mate­ly lead T&T to seek as­sis­tance from the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF).

He pre­sent­ed a record­ing of UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar out­lin­ing the pol­i­cy dur­ing a Par­lia­men­tary de­bate and doc­u­ments from UNC’s eco­nom­ic plan, which he said was still on the par­ty’s web­site.

Quot­ing from the doc­u­ment, Young said, “The UNC’s plan in black and white, and it says, lis­ten to the words of the UNC. A new UNC gov­ern­ment will com­mit to the fol­low­ing: work with the Cen­tral Bank to en­sure a com­pet­i­tive ex­change rate. For those who don’t un­der­stand what that means, that means to de­val­ue the dol­lar. She goes on to say the UNC plan for 2020 to 2025, the Min­istry of Fi­nance un­der the UNC will work with the Cen­tral Bank to en­sure Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­change rate is com­pet­i­tive, elim­i­nat­ing the cur­rent dirty man­aged float and al­low­ing mar­ket forces to op­er­ate. You hear how the UNC is speak­ing about our dol­lar. They want to elim­i­nate the dirty, man­aged float. That means de­val­u­a­tion.”

He said the IMF has been ad­vis­ing T&T to float the dol­lar, but for the past decade the PNM has re­sist­ed. He not­ed that the UNC’s plan ef­fec­tive­ly aligns with the IMF’s ad­vice, warn­ing that de­val­u­a­tion would lead to sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased liv­ing costs.

He said he had con­sult­ed with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul, Min­istry of Fi­nance tech­nocrats and in­de­pen­dent econ­o­mists to ex­am­ine the UNC’s plans.

“So I sat with the econ­o­mists and I said, what is it go­ing to de­val­ue to? How can they af­ford this that they’re promis­ing? I stand here to­day Trinidad and To­ba­go, that if the UNC gets in­to pow­er on April 28, 2025, no mat­ter what they say, they’re go­ing to de­val­ue our dol­lars 15 to 1,” Young said.

Pro­vid­ing ex­am­ples of the po­ten­tial im­pact, he said a 2kg pack of flour would rise from $18.49 to $40.85, a 2kg bag of rice from $29 to $64, and an 85g pack of cur­ry pow­der from $12 to $26.50.

“Every­thing is go­ing to cost twice as much,” Young said.

Asked for a re­sponse to Young’s claims yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said he ex­pect­ed the PNM would use fear­mon­ger­ing in their cam­paign.

“We ex­pect­ed him to say that be­cause we are meet­ing and treat­ing with pub­lic of­fi­cers. We are meet­ing and treat­ing with the unions. We are com­mit­ting our­selves to cer­tain pro­grammes, re­open­ing the uni­ver­si­ty, as­sur­ing that we fix the health sec­tor, en­sur­ing that we pro­tect pen­sions and so on. So, this is part of their scare tac­tics in the fi­nal phase of their cam­paign be­cause they have noth­ing to say by way of per­for­mance,” Mooni­lal said.

Par­ty chair­man Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo al­so in­sist­ed the UNC has no such plans.

Tan­coo said the Na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Trans­for­ma­tion Mas­ter Plan was de­vel­oped in 2015 or 2020 and the UNC’s man­i­festo is yet to be pub­lished.

“Mr Stu­art Young con­tin­ues to live in the past, and that is why the coun­try has not moved for­ward,” Tan­coo said.

He added, “The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has said de­val­u­a­tion is not an op­tion. What we did in 2015 or when­ev­er that pro­gramme was, was to look at the lev­el of the cur­ren­cy. But I think that now, the T&T Gov­ern­ment has al­ready de­val­ued the TT dol­lar.

“When you have a sit­u­a­tion where the price of gas has tripled, that is a de­val­u­a­tion of the TT dol­lar. When the cost of goods and ser­vices over­all has in­creased, that is a de­val­u­a­tion of the TT dol­lar. That is what he should be talk­ing about.”

Dur­ing the PNM meet­ing, Young al­so ques­tioned where the UNC would find the fund­ing for its elec­tion promis­es, re­mind­ing sup­port­ers that T&T op­er­ates on a bud­get deficit.

He crit­i­cised the UNC’s pro­pos­al to start pub­lic sec­tor wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at 10 per cent, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly promis­ing to cut tax­es. He said the PNM had be­gun wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at 4 to 5 per cent be­cause that was what the coun­try could af­ford. He warned that a 10 per cent in­crease would cost tax­pay­ers $6 bil­lion in back­pay, while a 14 per cent in­crease would amount to $8.5 bil­lion.

How­ev­er, Tan­coo ar­gued that elim­i­nat­ing cor­rup­tion would pro­vide the nec­es­sary funds to sup­port these ini­tia­tives. He point­ed to a re­port from the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor (OPR), which es­ti­mat­ed that T&T los­es $5 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly due to cor­rup­tion.