KEVON FELMINE

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has warned that if the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) wins the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, the TT dol­lar could be de­val­ued to US$1 = TT$15.

He based his al­le­ga­tion on UNC’s eco­nom­ic pro­pos­als out­lined in their Na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Trans­for­ma­tion Mas­ter Plan for 2020 to 2025.

Young was speak­ing at a rainy Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, dur­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic meet­ing on Wednes­day night. He re­vealed that 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 econ­o­mist 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.

He pre­sent­ed a record­ing of UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar out­lin­ing plans, sup­port­ed by doc­u­ments from the UNC’s eco­nom­ic plan. 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.”

Young said the IMF has been ad­vis­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go 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.

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.

He crit­i­cised the UNC for propos­ing to start pub­lic sec­tor wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at a 10 per cent in­crease while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly promis­ing to slash tax­es. He said his gov­ern­ment be­gan wage ne­go­ti­a­tions at 4 and 5 per cent be­cause that was what the coun­try could af­ford, ex­plain­ing that a 10 per cent in­crease would cost tax­pay­ers $6 bil­lion in back pay, while a 14 per cent in­crease would amount to $8.5 bil­lion.

“That is not re­spon­si­ble. Re­mem­ber, we have deficit bud­gets,” Young said.

He ac­cused the UNC of caus­ing un­nec­es­sary fear among se­nior cit­i­zens about pen­sions, as­sur­ing that a re-elect­ed PNM gov­ern­ment would not in­ter­fere with them.

Young an­nounced that the gov­ern­ment would re­move tax­es on re­tired pub­lic ser­vants’ pen­sions if re­turned to of­fice. Oth­er promis­es in­clud­ed dou­bling the num­ber of food cards dis­trib­uted and re­mov­ing VAT on all school uni­forms to as­sist par­ents.

Young al­so ad­dressed Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s im­po­si­tion of rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs on im­ports from coun­tries across the world. He not­ed that while Trinidad and To­ba­go faced a 10 per cent tar­iff, Guyana was hit with a 38 per cent tar­iff.