Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, said yes­ter­day that the Min­istry of Fi­nance is work­ing on for­mal­is­ing and fi­nal­is­ing a NIF (Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund) 2 with­in the next two months.

Speak­ing at a vir­tu­al news con­fer­ence, Im­bert said the NIF 2 will be a five-year in­struc­ment as the five-year Se­ries A bond, which was is­sued in Au­gust 2018 and ma­tured in Au­gust 2023, was very suc­cess­ful and was par­tic­u­lar­ly at­trac­tive to peo­ple on the low­er end of the in­come pyra­mid.

He said the first five-year bond was so suc­cess­ful that when the Min­istry of Fi­nance did an analy­sis, it found that in­di­vid­u­als, par­tic­u­lar­ly peo­ple at the low­er end of the scale, were far more in­ter­est­ed in the five year Se­ries A tranche of NIF than they were in the 12 year or the 20-year bond.

In 2018, the Gov­ern­ment al­so is­sued 12-year and 20-year NIF bonds, which were backed by as­sets ac­quired from CL Fi­nan­cial as part of the re­pay­ment of the group’s debt to the Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the 2009 bailout. The three tranch­es of NIF bonds were al­so backed by Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed, the La Brea-based gen­er­a­tion com­pa­ny.

“The 20-year bond was picked up most­ly by in­sti­tu­tions like in­sur­ance com­pa­nies and so on, while 12-year bond was picked up by wealthy in­di­vid­u­als. The five-year bond was picked up by by your or­di­nary in­vestor,” said Im­bert.

He said right now the Min­istry of Fi­nance is fig­ur­ing out what the in­ter­est rate would be.

“In fact, I signed off on that just a week ago, but I don’t tell tales out of school. That will be­come known very soon. We are fo­cus­ing the NIF 2 so that it will tar­get again, that group of in­di­vid­u­als from the per­son with the small­est amount of mon­ey to medi­um-size in­di­vid­u­als.

“It is be­ing de­signed for that; it will be a very at­trac­tive in­ter­est rate, and it will have a tenor of five years and I ex­pect you to for­malise and fi­nalise all of this with­in the next two months,” said Im­bert.

New TTSEC chair

Asked about the ap­point­ment of a new chair for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC), Im­bert said: “The Cab­i­net has made a de­ci­sion to ap­point the per­son who is the deputy chair­man as the chair­man and that de­ci­sion has been com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties for the in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment to be pre­pared and is­sued.

“So that prob­lem has been re­solved.”

The deputy chair of the TTSEC is Im­ti­az Ho­sein, who is de­scribed on the Com­mis­sion’s web­site as be­ing a cer­ti­fied fraud ex­am­in­er and an ex­pert in the ar­eas of fi­nance and busi­ness.

The TTSEC has been with­out a chair for sev­er­al months fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of Enid Zepher­ine, who is a se­nior pub­lic ser­vant in the Min­istry of Fi­nance. Her de­par­ture has not been ex­plained.

Sec­tion 10 of the Se­cu­ri­ties Act, which is the leg­is­la­tion that gov­erns the se­cu­ri­ties in­dus­try in T&T, states: “Sub­ject to sub­sec­tion (6) the Com­mis­sion shall con­sist of no more than nine nor few­er than five in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing—

• ↓An at­tor­ney-at-law of at least ten years stand­ing; and

• ↓A rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Min­istry of Fi­nance.