PORT OF SPAIN – The Trinidad and Tobago government Friday said it was seeking to defer payment of billions of dollars (One TT dollar =US$0.16 cents) in arrears to public servants after accusing the former People’s Partnership government of going on a spending spree prior to the September 7 general election.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert told Parliament that as a result of a serious cash flow problem, the new Keith Rowley administration is “currently reconciling all arrears of salaries, that is back pay owed to our public sector employees and to our protective services.
“The arrears to the various arms of the protective services that are payable alone exceed two billion, in fact it is TT$2.6 billion is what is owed…to the army, the police, etc, while arrears owed to the health sector workers (is) TT$1.7 billion as a result of collective negotiations that were settled just before the election”.
Imbert told legislators that these are just two examples of “what we have been saddled with in 2016.
“Unfortunately within the constraints of the overdrawn exchequer account and the overdraft limit at the Central Bank there is simply insufficient cash available at this time to pay these arrears of salaries and back pay”.
He said the government’s focus now is to ensure that salaries and wages and essential goods and services are covered “while we make the necessary arrangements to go to the commercial banking sector to raise the necessary funds to get the government’s overdraft levels down to a point where we can settle the outstanding arrears”.
Imbert said that the government also intends to raise special bond issues to settle the arrears and he has since met with the commercial banks “to initiate this process.
“It will require adjustment of a liquidity level and adjustment of reserve held by the commercial banks, at the Central Bank and for all those who don’t know the law, in accordance with the Central Bank Act…I will give the Central Bank the requisite directives in due course so that the bank can in accordance with the law give effect to the government’s fiscal and monetary policy”.
Imbert told legislators that for the month of December the government will ensure that public sector workers receive their salaries no later than December 18 “ and in 2016 we will do what is required to ensure that all of these payments of arrears and salaries and wages and back pay numbering in the billions are made at the earliest opportunity in the context of our revenue raising measures, our debt funding activities and the commitment of this government to settle all outstanding liabilities”.
Earlier, Imbert told legislators that the former People’s Partnership government headed by Kamla Persad Bissessar had embarked on a spending spree prior to the general election resulting in the new government being saddled with liabilities totalling “billions of dollars. (CMC)
