MP for Oropouche West Davendranath Tancoo says the government continues to sabotage the potential for growth and development of Trinidad and Tobago, not only by its corruption and mismanagement but increasingly, through the public utterances.
In a statement, Tancoo said, “In 2015, Colm Imbert’s infamous comment that the country was operating on fumes, had a deleterious effect on the country’s investments and credit rating. This is despite it being untrue, and notwithstanding the fact that the Minister was in position to know that there was almost 1 year of foreign reserves and import cover, billions from traditional and non- traditional revenue streams, all of which the government inherited from the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration.”
“Since then, the international rating agencies Moody’s Investment Services and Standard and Poor’s have consistently downgraded the country’s ratings on the basis on concern about the country’s ability to meet its obligations under Minister Imbert.”
According to Tancoo, these credit ratings are used by global investors to ascertain the country’s investment risk factors. As such, the result was a massive contraction of the economy as investors chose to move their money out of Trinidad and Tobago. In fact, last year this country saw negative foreign direct investment (FDI) of US$439 million (almost TT$3 billion).
He said, “the Prime Minister continued to undermine development efforts when in trying to explain the reason his government continues to fail to protect citizens with the current massive spike in the murder rate and a crime wave devouring the society, he described the country as violent in nature.”
At a time when the world is starting to recover from Covid 19 and competition for investment funds is keen, particularly foreign direct investment, his ill-timed comments could not come at a worse time. Considering that this country is in dire need of foreign exchange to meet the local demand, Dr. Rowley’s statement will further push investors away from this country notes Tancoo.
Tancoo observed that the crisis of confidence caused by these and other utterances continue to undermine the best interests of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Having been in office for almost 7 years now, it is unfortunate that Dr. Rowley and his Ministers continue to fail at governance and choose to blame everyone else. The burden of funding the corruption and mismanagement of the Rowley administration continues to fall disproportionately on the shoulders and backs of the poorest citizens via increased taxation despite worsening services from every part of this Government.
According to MP Tancoo, with nothing to show for the more than $320 billion already spent, Government’s resort to blame the population will predictably push the country further down the world rankings, causing investors to seek better options elsewhere.
How do these comments attract tourists and business to this country? Does the Prime Minister even care? But even if he doesn’t, we all should as our nation is far more important than this regime stated Tancoo.
After almost seven years in office one wonders when this Rowley regime will begin to govern this country for the benefit of all the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.
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