Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon-felmine@guardian.co.tt

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has ques­tioned why Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers have gone qui­et af­ter Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai dis­missed long-stand­ing claims of a for­eign ex­change car­tel in T&T.

In a post on X Sat­ur­day, Im­bert wrote: “For 10 years, the Op­po­si­tion in­sist­ed that there was a forex car­tel in T&T. Now that the new UNC CBTT Gov­er­nor has con­firmed that there is no such car­tel and that cred­it card us­age has in­creased by 400 per cent, thus cre­at­ing a de­mand and sup­ply prob­lem, the UNC trolls are odd­ly silent. Why?”

Im­bert’s re­marks fol­lowed Howai’s me­dia en­gage­ment on Thurs­day, where he was asked di­rect­ly about the ex­is­tence of a car­tel. The gov­er­nor, a for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, was un­equiv­o­cal say­ing, “From our per­spec­tive, we have no ev­i­dence of a car­tel.”

While re­ject­ing the no­tion of col­lu­sion among fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, Howai ac­knowl­edged on­go­ing chal­lenges in the sys­tem. He point­ed to a black mar­ket and a grey mar­ket for US dol­lars, where in­di­vid­u­als bank for­eign cur­ren­cy abroad, as well as short­ages dri­ven by high de­mand—over US$6 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly—par­tic­u­lar­ly from re­tail and dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tors. Howai said the Cen­tral Bank is work­ing to im­prove trans­paren­cy in forex al­lo­ca­tion while bal­anc­ing con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

The gov­er­nor’s com­ments come amid a re­newed Gov­ern­ment probe in­to for­eign ex­change prac­tices.

On May 15, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that Cab­i­net had man­dat­ed the Min­is­ters of Fi­nance, Trade and In­vest­ment, Tourism, and Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment to com­pile a re­port on forex dis­tri­b­u­tion and leak­ages over the past decade. She said the re­port will iden­ti­fy the largest users of for­eign ex­change, fa­cil­i­ta­tors of its dis­tri­b­u­tion, and busi­ness­es al­leged­ly ben­e­fit­ing from un­fair or opaque prac­tices.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­peat­ed­ly sug­gest­ed that a “forex car­tel” dis­tort­ed ac­cess to for­eign cur­ren­cy dur­ing pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions. She cit­ed the dis­missal of then-Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­bar­ran in 2015, af­ter he re­vealed the names of the top users of for­eign ex­change, as an ex­am­ple of ef­forts to sup­press trans­paren­cy. The UNC has al­so raised its con­cerns at in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums, in­clud­ing meet­ings with the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF), call­ing forex ac­cess one of the coun­try’s most press­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

Im­bert, how­ev­er, has con­sis­tent­ly de­fend­ed the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ap­proach. As fi­nance min­is­ter, he ar­gued that gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy pri­ori­tised sta­bil­i­ty, in­fla­tion con­trol, and pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble house­holds. He re­sist­ed calls to float the T&T dol­lar, warn­ing that de­val­u­a­tion would in­crease the cost of liv­ing, make im­ports more ex­pen­sive, and would not gen­er­ate ad­di­tion­al US dol­lars.

He al­so not­ed that the IMF had rec­om­mend­ed greater flex­i­bil­i­ty in the ex­change rate since 2012, but stressed that the UNC had re­ject­ed sim­i­lar pro­pos­als while in of­fice.

“Nei­ther par­ty want­ed to im­pose hard­ship on cit­i­zens by de­valu­ing the cur­ren­cy,” Im­bert said.

De­fend­ing mea­sures such as the Ex­im­Bank forex win­dows for es­sen­tial im­ports, Im­bert said they were de­signed to tar­get dis­tri­b­u­tion more ef­fec­tive­ly. He de­nied sug­ges­tions that the PNM gov­ern­ment re­opened these win­dows un­der pres­sure, say­ing the re­view process was al­ready un­der­way then.