Oropouche West MP Dave Tancoo has slammed the Finance Minister Colm Imbert for boasting that the NIF2 has been oversubscribed.
According to Tancoo, it is a theatrical distraction from the economic, environmental and national security crisis caused by the oil spill in Tobago.
In a response to the announcement on Thursday, Tancoo notes that on the last occasion the Minister of Finance boasted of the NIF being oversubscribed, it was eventually revealed that the National Insurance Board, over which the Minister has full control, had been directed to invest 1 billion dollars into the NIF.
Tancoo said: “In other words, the Minister of Finance used State funds to create the illusion of oversubscription. You cannot trust anything that this Government and this Minister is saying”.
According to MP Tancoo, “Just to be clear, these companies belong to taxpayers and any revenue generated by them would have gone into the consolidated fund as revenue to the country. Instead three-quarters of the NIF returns have benefitted private hands. Interestingly, the timing of the Minister’s announcement comes immediately before he goes to the Parliament to create space to borrow 10 billion dollars more.”
The opposition MP claims that this comes on the heels of the worst environmental and national security disaster that this country has seen in almost fifty (50) years and suggests that this is merely a cheap theatrical distraction from the Government’s failure to protect our sister island and to do anything about the gaping breaches in our national security infrastructure. He stated that, “only this Minister can celebrate failure with distractions upon distractions, instead of doing something to treat with crises facing this country.”
Tancoo has summarized the Finance Minister’s move by saying, “This is Imbert investing in Imbert so that Imbert could say that Imbert is successfully oversubscribed, all at taxpayers’ expense.”