For­mer work­ers of Ca­roni (1975) Ltd are hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment would bring clo­sure to the out­stand­ing "VSEP sweet­en­er" dis­pute. The "sweet­en­er" con­tract with the Agri­cul­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Bank (2003-2009) pro­vid­ed for a 12 per cent in­ter­est on their sev­er­ance pay de­posit, while be­ing charged eight per cent on loans us­ing their de­posits as se­cu­ri­ty. A two per cent "man­age­ment fee" was al­so paid. The ADB failed to de­liv­er on the 12 per cent, blam­ing "glob­al fac­tors,'' of­fered ze­ro per cent for the en­tire six years, while still charg­ing a high eight per cent on loans.

Back in 2003, the then gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed loans to Ned­co clients at a rate of four per cent but charged the Ca­roni work­ers eight per cent through the ADB. The for­mer Ca­roni work­ers are sim­ply ask­ing for equal treat­ment. A rea­son­able so­lu­tion to this im­passe is to re­cal­cu­late the loans at four per cent and al­low them to take home the resid­ual bal­ance, plus a full re­fund of the "man­age­ment fee." It must be born in mind that this mat­ter does not in any way in­volve tax­pay­ers' dol­lars but rather a re­bate of ex­cess in­ter­est paid.

Win­ston H Ramd­hani

Cou­va