GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Cen­tral Bank says it is lim­it­ed when it comes to the dis­clo­sure of cer­tain in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing top users of forex.

The bank ex­plained this is in ac­cor­dance with stip­u­la­tions in Cen­tral Bank Act.

It al­so made clear that Au­di­tor Gen­er­al no longer func­tions as the Cen­tral Bank’s ex­ter­nal au­di­tor.

The bank was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who said that Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, Dr Alvin Hi­laire, was re­fus­ing to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion on the top users of for­eign ex­change in this coun­try.

At Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Red House in Port-of-Spain, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked when can the coun­try ex­pect the re­port on the for­eign ex­change car­tel.

De­scrib­ing try­ing to get in­for­ma­tion from the Cen­tral Bank as be­ing “like a bed of thorns or pulling teeth,” the PM re­ferred to a case in court that the Gov­ern­ment may have to bring to per­suade the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tor.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the Cen­tral Bank was “us­ing cer­tain pro­vi­sions of the law, say­ing they don’t have a du­ty and that they are not un­der any oblig­a­tion to dis­close in­for­ma­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Cen­tral Bank yes­ter­day to as­cer­tain:

*Are the com­ments made by the PM true that the Cen­tral Bank is block­ing in­for­ma­tion and us­ing cer­tain pro­vi­sions in the law not to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion about forex?

*Will the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor meet with the PM to clar­i­fy the is­sue?

• Will the in­for­ma­tion the Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing be pro­vid­ed by the Cen­tral Bank?

• Who are the top users of forex in the coun­try?

• How much forex is is­sued to the top users an­nu­al­ly?

In re­sponse the bank said, “The Cen­tral Bank Act is clear on the lim­its of our pub­lic dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted to us. At the same time, in our nor­mal course of busi­ness, the Gov­er­nor and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance dis­cuss and share con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion and in­sights on many mat­ters in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.”

The Cen­tral Bank fur­ther not­ed that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al no longer func­tions as the ex­ter­nal au­di­tor of the Cen­tral Bank of T&T.

“The bank nonethe­less con­sid­ers the Of­fice of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to be an im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tion in con­tribut­ing to trans­paren­cy and good gov­er­nance of the fis­cal ac­counts. The Cen­tral Bank re­mains will­ing to pro­vide any in­for­ma­tion to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al re­lat­ed to any spe­cif­ic dis­crep­an­cy in the fis­cal ac­counts,” the bank added.

At Sec­tion 56, the Cen­tral Bank Act states: “Ex­cept in so far as may be nec­es­sary for the due per­for­mance of its ob­jects, and sub­ject to sec­tion 8 of the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act, every di­rec­tor, of­fi­cer and em­ploy­ee of the Bank shall pre­serve and aid in pre­serv­ing se­cre­cy with re­gard to all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the af­fairs of the Bank, any fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion or per­son reg­is­tered un­der the In­sur­ance Act or of any cus­tomers there­of that may come to his knowl­edge in the course of his du­ties.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to for­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Ewart Williams to get his per­spec­tive on whether it is the Cen­tral Bank’s pol­i­cy to dis­close in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the top users of forex.

Williams said, “No, ab­solute­ly not.”

Asked why, he said, “I don’t think any Gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tion is ex­pect­ed to give in­for­ma­tion on any pri­vate com­pa­ny. You can’t do that. You’re not sup­posed to give in­for­ma­tion on an in­di­vid­ual or a com­pa­ny.

“You are ab­solute­ly not. That is a ba­sic re­quire­ment of the Sta­tis­ti­cal Act. You’re not sup­posed to give in­for­ma­tion with re­gard to peo­ple who gave you that in­di­vid­ual in­for­ma­tion.”