Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment will seek par­lia­men­tary ap­proval on Fri­day to in­crease bor­row­ing lim­its to the lev­el of $30 bil­lion to deal with gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment and al­so to a bor­row­ing lev­el of $45 bil­lion for state agen­cies guar­an­teed by Gov­ern­ment.

This is ac­cord­ing to var­i­ous fig­ures giv­en in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives' agen­da for Fri­day's House sit­ting where sev­er­al mo­tions on the mat­ter will be de­bat­ed.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on Mon­day told the T&T Guardian the sit­u­a­tion was nec­es­sary due to the bor­row­ing lev­el done over the last five years.

At last Fri­day's Low­er House ses­sion, Gov­ern­ment House Leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is sig­nalled that at the next House ses­sion (this Fri­day), Gov­ern­ment would be pre­sent­ing mo­tions to raise the bor­row­ing ceil­ings.

She said de­bate would fo­cus on amend­ments re­gard­ing sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing bor­row­ing, in­clud­ing the De­vel­op­ment Loans Act, Guar­an­tee of Loans Act (for Com­pa­nies) and Ex­ter­nal Loans Act.

Ac­cord­ing to Fri­day's House agen­da, de­bate will fo­cus on a mo­tion con­cern­ing the De­vel­op­ment Loans Act which au­tho­ris­es Gov­ern­ment to bor­row mon­ey in­ter­nal­ly or ex­ter­nal­ly in sums not ex­ceed­ing TT$30 bil­lion for fi­nanc­ing gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment in T&T.

It can al­so be done for re­pay­ment of bor­row­ings ef­fect­ed for gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment; or re­pay­ment of bor­row­ings for gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment; or by a statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ty, by a state en­ter­prise or UWI.

A res­o­lu­tion to be de­bat­ed in the mo­tion seeks to au­tho­rise Gov­ern­ment un­der this Act to bor­row in­ter­nal­ly or ex­ter­nal­ly "in sums not ex­ceed­ing $15 bil­lion TT."

An­oth­er res­o­lu­tion seeks to al­low Gov­ern­ment to bor­row $15 bil­lion un­der Sec­tion 3(1) of the Ex­ter­nal Loans Act, Chap 71:05.

This Act al­lows Gov­ern­ment to bor­row mon­ey ex­ter­nal­ly in for­eign cur­ren­cy for fi­nanc­ing gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment in T&T, or of re­pay­ing bor­row­ings ef­fect­ed for the gen­er­al de­vel­op­ment.

Al­so un­der de­bate is a third res­o­lu­tion–un­der the Guar­an­tee of Loans (Com­pa­nies) Act, Chap. 71:82 –which man­dates that the ag­gre­gate amount of all bor­row­ings by State com­pa­nies that are guar­an­teed by Gov­ern­ment un­der the Act, shall not ex­ceed $45 bil­lion.

Im­bert ex­plained: "Be­cause of the bor­row­ing done over the last five years, we are very close to the lim­its in all three (Acts) and with­out these in­creas­es, we would be un­able to pur­sue T&T's De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme or fi­nalise a num­ber of loan arrange­ments en­tered in­to by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment."

He didn't de­tail if Gov­ern­ment would seek to use the full lim­it of the $15 bil­lion and $45 bil­lion sums al­lowed un­der the Acts, or what specif­i­cal­ly the funds will be used for. He will speak fur­ther on it on Fri­day.

At last Thurs­day's week­ly Gov­ern­ment me­dia con­fer­ence, Im­bert said T&T's De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme would have been among "one or two things" which might be de­layed due to falling oil prices.

He said the lat­ter was a se­ri­ous con­cern. He said the De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme in­cludes roads, bridges, schools, in­fra­struc­ture, etc.

Com­ment­ing on the up­com­ing "bor­row­ing" mo­tion, Op­po­si­tion Whip Dr Bhoe Tewarie said: "The fact Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to in­crease bor­row­ing means they will be able to bor­row up to those lev­els (in the Acts) if they find it is nec­es­sary. What we are in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing from the Fi­nance Min­is­ter is what ex­act­ly, they are plan­ning to bor­row for.

"The Gov­ern­ment's bor­row­ing strat­e­gy can­not be tak­en in iso­la­tion.

"It has to be seen against the back­ground of the re­cent­ly–pre­sent­ed Bud­get and the ex­tent to which the Bud­get has been im­ple­ment­ed, is be­ing im­ple­ment­ed or is im­ple­mentable as well as the num­bers used in the bud­get for rev­enue, ex­pen­di­ture and deficit."

Econ­o­mist In­dera Sage­wan-Al­li, who not­ed the PP Gov­ern­ment had al­so in­creased bor­row­ing lim­its in its term, said she was not sur­prised Gov­ern­ment al­so was go­ing that route.

She added: "Giv­en the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter in the 2016 Bud­get, there was a lot of out­stand­ing debts to be re­paid, monies spent, ow­ing etc.

"Add to this, falling en­er­gy prices and Gov­ern­ment's $63 bil­lion Bud­get. The mon­ey, there­fore, has to come from some­where to pay debts and treat with 2016 ex­pen­di­ture.

"This (bor­row­ing) route is the on­ly one left to Gov­ern­ment, giv­en the de­clin­ing rev­enue sit­u­a­tion. Gov­ern­ment's cash cow of sorts, the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, has in­sti­tut­ed a wage freeze and that, to me, is an in­di­ca­tion of how bad things are.

"Al­so, there's the wors­en­ing for­eign ex­change sit­u­a­tion and TT cur­ren­cy de­pre­ci­a­tion. If you are at the low­er end of the band, you will know the dol­lar has de­pre­ci­at­ed."

Sage­wan-Al­li said bor­row­ing for de­vel­op­ment pur­pos­es was not "nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad thing" since de­vel­op­ment could lead to medi­um-term rev­enue gen­er­a­tion. How­ev­er, she ex­pressed con­cern about bor­row­ing that in­volved in­cur­ring new ex­pen­di­ture.

"With­out a doubt they should, for in­stance, shelve the Rapid Rail mass tran­sit project for at least a year," she added.

Sage­wan-Al­li said that project would add to var­i­ous trans­porta­tion sys­tems al­ready in train with hefty state sub­si­dies and would fur­ther en­cum­ber T&T with the need for new tech­nol­o­gy, in­fra­struc­ture and hu­man re­sources.

Urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to lean to­wards prac­ti­cal rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing pro­grammes over van­i­ty projects, she added: "(So) on Fri­day I hope the min­is­ter will be open about what he's bor­row­ing for, so there can be full trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

OP­PO­SI­TION RE­SPONDS

The Op­po­si­tion UNC has ex­pressed con­cern that Gov­ern­ment's un­prece­dent­ed move to head sev­er­al new par­lia­men­tary Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tees (JSC) would ham­per full ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly an­nounced mem­bers for 15 JSCs as well as the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (PAC) and Pub­lic Ac­counts En­ter­pris­es Com­mit­tee (PAEC). The JSCs in­clud­ed new com­mit­tees on Hu­man Rights and Di­ver­si­ty, For­eign Af­fairs and on oth­er is­sues.

The Op­po­si­tion heads the PAC.

UNC whip Dr Bhoe Tewarie, who was named to head the lat­ter team, not­ed that the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had in­sti­tut­ed a prac­tice of hav­ing Gov­ern­ment mem­bers chair the new JSCs and have Op­po­si­tion mem­bers as deputy chair­men of those teams.

He said pre­vi­ous­ly un­der the PP's tenure, JSCs were head­ed by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors. He said that was done to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Say­ing Gov­ern­ment should not head the JSCs, Tewarie added: "I think it is un­rea­son­able for the Gov­ern­ment to chair the five new com­mit­tees among the JSCs.

"One can­not ex­pect the Gov­ern­ment to scru­ti­nise its own work. It is some­thing of a joke that Gov­ern­ment would want to chair these com­mit­tees now and ask the Op­po­si­tion to be deputy chair. It makes lit­tle sense for the Op­po­si­tion to play that role.

"If the Gov­ern­ment is in the chair, it will means it's one more role to dom­i­nate the Par­lia­ment and that's a re­ver­sal of roles. It seems they want to be in charge of every­thing," he added.

Three of the new JSC teams–the Fi­nance and Le­gal Af­fairs com­mit­tee, Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture Com­mit­tee, So­cial Ser­vices and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion–hold pre­lim­i­nary meet­ings to­day at Par­lia­ment.