Yes­ter­day, this news­pa­per pub­lished an ar­ti­cle head­lined, ‘Govt bor­rows $14B in 9 months,’ which ac­cu­rate­ly re­port­ed on in­for­ma­tion from the Cen­tral Bank’s May 2024 Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy Re­port, pub­lished on Ju­ly 12, and from a news re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry of Fi­nance on June 18.

Cit­ing the Cen­tral Bank doc­u­ment, the ar­ti­cle re­port­ed that for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 2023 to May 2024, “The Gov­ern­ment was the pri­ma­ry bor­row­er, is­su­ing 11 bonds at $8.07 bil­lion, while three state en­ter­pris­es fi­nanced $1.10 bil­lion.”

The ar­ti­cle made no men­tion of debt fi­nanc­ing, but did ref­er­ence the Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy Re­port as out­lin­ing, “Over the pe­ri­od (Oc­to­ber 2023 to May 2024), the Gov­ern­ment ac­cessed the mar­ket for bud­get sup­port and the re­pay­ment of ex­ist­ing fa­cil­i­ties.”

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to the ar­ti­cle, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said, “This ar­ti­cle gives an en­tire­ly false im­pres­sion that, as a re­sult of mas­sive Gov­ern­ment bor­row­ing, the pub­lic debt in­creased by over $14 bil­lion be­tween Oc­to­ber 2023 and June 2024.” On­ly peo­ple un­aware of the fact that gov­ern­ments re­fi­nance debt, bor­row mon­ey to make debt pay­ments (in­ter­est and prin­ci­pal), as well as raise mon­ey to fund the op­er­a­tion of their pub­lic ser­vice would think that Gov­ern­ment bor­row­ing au­to­mat­i­cal­ly equates to an in­crease in debt.

The re­lease from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance did, how­ev­er, pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic that was pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed. He re­port­ed that for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 2023 to June 2024, the Gov­ern­ment re­fi­nanced cen­tral gov­ern­ment and gov­ern­ment-guar­an­teed debt to­talling $2.67 bil­lion. He al­so re­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment made prin­ci­pal pay­ments to­talling $9.23 bil­lion on cen­tral gov­ern­ment debt of $6.8 bil­lion and gov­ern­ment-guar­an­teed debt of $2.43 bil­lion. Those prin­ci­pal pay­ments re­duced the net pub­lic debt by $9.23 bil­lion.

This in­for­ma­tion about the quan­tum of prin­ci­pal pay­ments and debt re­fi­nanc­ing does as­sist the pub­lic in un­der­stand­ing T&T’s true eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. It would al­so be use­ful for the Min­istry of Fi­nance to dis­close in­for­ma­tion about the coun­try’s debt-to-GDP ra­tio.

The pop­u­la­tion’s un­der­stand­ing of the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic po­si­tion would al­so be en­hanced if the Min­istry of Fi­nance were to make pub­lic the in­for­ma­tion on the coun­try’s to­tal out­stand­ing debt, the per­cent­age of the to­tal debt that is de­nom­i­nat­ed in for­eign cur­ren­cies, as well as da­ta on T&T’s debt ser­vice oblig­a­tions, both in TT dol­lars and in for­eign cur­ren­cies.

Far too of­ten, the Min­istry of Fi­nance with­holds per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion from the pub­lic, even when it is is­su­ing news re­leas­es on debt mat­ters. The out­stand­ing ex­am­ple of this is the afore­men­tioned June 18 news re­lease, which pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion on the 10-year, US$750 mil­lion bond, pay­ing an in­ter­est rate of 6.40 per cent. That re­lease in­formed the pub­lic about the length of the vir­tu­al road­show, the num­ber of pre­sen­ta­tions Mr Im­bert made dur­ing the day, and the fact that 53 of “the most pres­ti­gious as­set man­agers” were ad­dressed.

While pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion on these triv­ial mat­ters, the re­lease is qui­et on the most im­por­tant as­pects of the US$750 mil­lion raised in the name of the peo­ple of T&T: the pur­pose for which the bond was is­sued, and how much of that mon­ey will be used to pay off ex­ist­ing debt and the sched­ul­ing of those pay­ments.

Giv­en the del­i­cate state in which the T&T econ­o­my now finds it­self, the Min­istry of Fi­nance should re­fo­cus its ef­forts to en­sure the pub­lic has in­for­ma­tion on all as­pects of T&T’s debt, and oth­er key eco­nom­ic in­for­ma­tion. This in­for­ma­tion should be pro­vid­ed to the pub­lic on a pre­dictable and sched­uled ba­sis.