GUARDIAN ME­DIA NEWS­ROOM

Oropouche West MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says he is con­cerned that cit­i­zens’ pri­vate bank­ing in­for­ma­tion could be eas­i­ly ac­cessed by Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, fol­low­ing re­cent ut­ter­ances by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert, over the cur­rent for­eign ex­change cri­sis.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, the UNC Chair­man and Op­po­si­tion spokesman on Fi­nance re­ferred to a post on Min­is­ter Im­bert’s so­cial me­dia ac­count at X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter), in which the Min­is­ter stat­ed: “I checked with the Ex­im­Bank to­day, and I was told that the busi­ness­man the pa­per is pro­mot­ing has NEV­ER ap­plied to the Ex­im­Bank for ac­cess to for­eign ex­change. NEV­ER.”

Ac­cord­ing to MP Tan­coo, Min­is­ter Im­bert has abused his po­si­tion and au­thor­i­ty in or­der to ob­tain such da­ta.

“Im­bert has no right to see who re­quest­ed for­eign ex­change and who didn't,” the Op­po­si­tion MP ar­gued. “No politi­cian … should have that kind of ac­cess to pri­vate bank­ing in­for­ma­tion of peo­ple or busi­ness­es.”

MP Tan­coo says one of the Op­po­si­tion’s “biggest fears” has been re­alised, as a re­sult.

“This is ex­act­ly why the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty must be op­posed—Im­bert and his Cab­i­net col­leagues will have ac­cess to every­one’s fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion for po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­iza­tion and abuse,” he main­tains.

“In light of this se­ri­ous turn of events,” the UNC Chair­main said, “it is now more im­por­tant than ever be­fore that cit­i­zens de­mand that Min­is­ter Im­bert state ex­act­ly what in­for­ma­tion he re­quest­ed of Ex­im­bank, how was the re­quest made, and on what ba­sis did the bank pro­vide said in­for­ma­tion to the Min­is­ter, who is an ac­tive politi­cian.”

“The Ex­im­Bank must al­so pro­vide an un­am­bigu­ous ex­pla­na­tion re­gard­ing the con­di­tions un­der which Mr. Im­bert was able to ac­cess in­for­ma­tion on the bank's clien­tele,” he added.

MP Tan­coo called on the Fi­nance Min­is­ter clear the air on the mat­ter, as soon as pos­si­ble.