Government has no intention to dip into the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF) at this stage and might only look to this as a last resort if it has to address a particular situation, Finance Minister Larry Howai has assured. He was speaking to reporters at Parliament yesterday after hints by the Prime Minister that withdrawals from the HSF might be necessary if the declining oil price situation does not improve soon.
She also said the Government might have to revise the 2015 budget. OWTU head Ancel Roget, however, has urged Government not to use the HSF “rainy day” fund which is currently US$5.5 billion Asked about it by the T&T Guardian yesterday Howai, back from overseas, however, said at this stage Government didn’t need to dip into the HSF.
He added: “I still have to pull the date together and we will continue to monitor the situation to see where the numbers end up. Some of this element of decline may be temporary and some more long-term. As things start to stabilise we will understand where we will end up. “However, we normally make adjustments first and the HSF would be a last resort. It is for only if you get to a particular situation that you have to address and we are not anywhere near that at this stage.”
He also said Government had to consider that while it wanted to be careful about its debt load, it had to be careful about how it deferred projects which could become more costly when they were done later on down the line. He said, for example, the Curepe Interchange would have cost much less if it was built in 1981.
Howai made that comment in the context of replying to questions about the Auditor General’s special audit which painted a damning picture of the special purposes state enterprise, Sportt Company, which had been set up in 2004 under the PNM to facilitate the implementation of sport policy and which remains in operation under the current Government.
The Auditor General found a total of $411 million was spent from 2009 to 2013 on sporting facilities meant to provide “sport for all” but that purported goal has not been achieved. Howai said he was in the process of looking at the operations more closely since the report had only been laid in Parliament last Wednesday.
He said the issues mentioned had never come to his ministry and he was not aware of all the details. He said he was now trying to get some of those details and defining how to deal with it. He added that most of the people had been changed since that time
He said he would meet with Sport officials to discuss the issues and it would take time.
He said Government was not at the stage of thinking of closing the Sportt Company since he needed to see the responses from all the divisions involved and get clarification and “then see how we proceed from there.” Howai said some special purpose state agencies worked well by and large and some did have issues that arose from time-to-time.