TANCOO SAYS THERE IS A FOREX CABAL IN T&T

CCNTV6

An Opposition MP says there is a foreign exchange cabal in this country.  However, he does not agree with any suggestion that floating the Trinidad and Tobago dollar at this time is the solution.  This, as the Finance Minister says floating the dollar "helps no one except those hoarding USD to make a quick profit."  Juhel Browne reports.

Transcript

00:00And this is frightening. What this means is that there is no official policy that

00:05deals with the allocation of foreign exchange to businesses and individuals.

00:09Nothing that guides the Central Bank on how to determine how much and whom to

00:15give. Hundreds of millions of foreign exchange distributed every year.

00:19West MP Divenjana Thangku speaking during the opposition's media

00:23conference on Sunday as he displayed what he identified as the Finance

00:27Ministry's response to a letter from the attorney of the owner and founder of

00:31Ramsaram Dairy Products on the distribution of foreign exchange in

00:35Trinidad and Tobago. It's already extremely troubling. What makes it even worse?

00:40It's a massive level of foreign borrowing that this government has been

00:44engaged in so that they can continue to feed their favourite firms. Literally

00:49borrowing billions of US dollars on the international market with no way of

00:55paying it back simply to facilitate the foreign exchange cabal. This is the PNM

01:03government that shut down Petro Trin, a large net foreign exchange owner, so that

01:07they can offer the country the mirage of Dragon Gas. However this was MP Thangku's

01:13response to a question during the opposition's media conference on Sunday

01:17about one newspaper editorial's suggestion on how to deal with the forex

01:22I think that floating the exchange rate requires some conditionalities which

01:27does not exist in Trinidad and Tobago and as a result of that it is inappropriate. I think it is

01:34wrong at this point in time to even consider going that way. In fact if you

01:38focus on what I have said during my contribution this morning, the problem may

01:42not just be the lack of will, the lack of new revenue sources.

01:49The opposition MP said it may not just be a problem in terms of the supply of foreign exchange.

01:55The problem is in terms of transparency. Maybe if there's a transparent, fair and equitable

02:02distribution of the existing foreign reserves that the country has and owns,

02:06we will not have a situation of the crisis that we are currently in.

02:10On Sunday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert posted a statement on X in which he said

02:17The Guardian recommended that we float the TT dollar, that is, devalue the TT dollar as a

02:23solution to the demand for US dollars. However, this helps no one except those

02:28hoarding US dollars to make a quick profit. It will not generate any extra US

02:34dollars for businesses and will just cause hardship and pain.

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