00:00It's the first time in decades this former PNM MP for St. Joseph has
00:05mounted a political platform. I'm not here as a former member of the PNM
00:11Parliament. I'm not here as a member of United National Congress. I'm here as a
00:16concerned citizen of Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Kennedy Swartzing makes an
00:21appearance in his hometown addressing members of what was once his
00:27constituency. I left politics in 2010 after I lost Mr. Volney and in 2011 I
00:37couldn't get a job in Trinidad in 2011 I got a job in Barbados so I've been
00:41living Barbados since 2011. A financial consultant Swartzing laments that TNT
00:47has lost its preeminent place as the financial powerhouse in the Caribbean.
00:53The rank-and-file and the very marginalized people are suffering even more and
00:59being pushed further down that scale. One of the difficulties in Trinidad and
01:05Tobago is that even if we were to invest in some of these projects now it will
01:10still take a while for these projects to come to fruition. So in the immediate
01:16term we have to give people hope. We have to give people confidence. We have to be
01:21empathetic and the only representative of that that we can find in the
01:27political scenario today is the Honorable Kamala Prasad. He reveals he
01:32once worked with former Finance Minister Winston Dukeran who was responsible for
01:37the country's purchase of shares in the Development Bank of Latin America and
01:42the Caribbean, CAF. Swartzing says this purchase entitled TNT to some 1.2 billion
01:50US dollars in exposure to support work and development. Unfortunately United
01:57National Congress came out of office in 2015 and so before the United National
02:02Congress government could access that money, Colm Imbert became Minister of
02:06Finance. Now at that time and I'm not yet a Bartok anybody, I'm giving you facts
02:13because I have no bone in my body for anything. I am not a back analyst but
02:19facts are stubborn things. He laments on the multiple times he used his suasion
02:25to help TNT, the CAF facility remained underutilized. We spent about three days
02:31with them working out a whole PPP structure. I came, I invested my time,
02:38nothing happened. We also designed a program to beautify the beatum especially
02:48all those drainage and so on. That was one of CAF signature program, nothing
02:53happened. We also went, we had a meeting with First Citizens Bank, we offered to
02:59give First Citizens Bank a 30 million US revolving facility. US, again nothing
03:08happened. Swartzing said meetings with the banking sector should be a regular
03:13affair and the interest of the people is being sidelined. He says at a time when
03:19two regional territories without refineries are producing oil, TNT closed
03:24its refinery. Urvashi Tewari, Rupner Rai, TV6 News.
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