00:00Finance Minister Devindran Atanku says TNT spent nine years on the European Union's blacklist relating to tax compliance, which negatively
00:09impacted the country.
00:10He says the People's National Movement was well aware of the ramifications.
00:14It hurt investor confidence. It made financial transactions with European unions and European institutions by business and financial institutions more
00:23difficult and costly.
00:25It increased due diligence requirements for domestic financial sector.
00:30It exposed us as a country to the risk of defensive measures by EU member states, and it damaged this
00:37country's international reputation.
00:39He accuses the PNM of having lagged the political will to resolve the problem.
00:45Our citizens must judge for themselves.
00:47who may have benefited from the deliberate sloppiness of the former government, which facilitated weak tax transparency, the absence of
00:59proper legislation, and a system that allowed money to be hidden, taxes to be avoided, and our revenue streams as
01:08a country to be compromised.
01:09Tan Kuforda says while the opposition is giving an impression that the removal was already in the pipeline, the United
01:16National Congress took strategic steps to get the country off the blacklist.
01:21He states that it began with the government's advancement of outstanding reforms to the country's tax transparency framework, which strengthened
01:29international cooperation in tax-sharing information.
01:32He adds that in July of 2025, the country secured an overall largely compliant rating under the Global Forum's exchange
01:41of information on request standard.
01:43Third, the requirements for the automatic exchange of financial account information were satisfied and validated by December 2025, bringing Trinidadan
01:52to be going to alignment with internationally accepted standards and addressing one of the key concerns identified in the EU
01:59screening process.
02:00Finally, Mr. President, progress was advanced under the OECD-based erosion and profit-shifting inclusive framework, including measures to support
02:09country-by-country reporting and strengthening protections against profit-shifting by multinational enterprises.
02:16But Opposition Senator Farris Al-Rawi suggests otherwise from a question posed to Tango.
02:22Would the Honorable Minister indicate what specific visionary action, to use his words,
02:28the Honorable Prime Minister did to cause the success in the on-site second-round peer review, which occurred in
02:36Trinidad and Tobago in October, in the period October 21st to 24th, 2024,
02:44which event generated the report that was presented in Romania in June 2025 and which gave us the removal from
02:52the EU list?
02:53But Tango would only say that it is unfortunate if Al-Rawi, who was part of the government at that
02:59time, has no idea of what was done,
03:01and he would share his Senate contribution with Al-Rawi so that he can read what was done to get
03:06TNT off the list.
03:08The Honorable Member is trying to insert himself in a matter in which he has already failed, not once, not
03:17twice, not three times, not four times, but for nine years, Mr. President.
03:22Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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