Leader of the Opposition Dr Keith Rowley has joined in the call for the proposed Phoenix Park Gas Processors’ initial public offering (IPO) to be aborted pending the conclusion of the investigations into last year’s controversial First Citizens IPO.
Chairman of the Clico Policyholders Group (CPG) Peter Permell also made a similar call.
Speaking yesterday during his first news conference for the year at his office on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, Rowley said no such IPO should be carried out under Finance and the Economy Minister Larry Howai. He said instead the 2015 election should be called soon.
“The Government must not do it under these conditions and since the Government is only able to treat with this loss of revenue situation after an expection, that is why the election should be called sooner rather than later,” he added.
He also stressed that the IPO should not be carried out until the “outcome” of the First Citizens IPO is determined. “We want the outcome of FCB,” he said.
On another matter, Rowley repeated the call for the former First Citizens chairman to say whether he purchased shares or engaged in trading at TCL during the blackout period 12 years ago.
He said the minister must answer questions about the alleged purchase of Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL) shares 12 years ago.
Rowley said yesterday his position was “that this Minister of Finance is to oversee no further sale of public assets until he explains himself to us.”
In an address to the nation last Thursday, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the IPO would proceed to allow the country to recover lost revenue due to the reduction in the price of oil in recent weeks.
But Rowley said yesterday Persad-Bissessar’s Government was “resolutely refusing to do what is required to be done by a responsible government in the prevailing situation because it is bad business for the election.”
Rowley said more was required to be done to address the issue of loss of revenue for the country.
He said external forces “have forced the country’s revenue down and the Government is refusing to acknowledge that situation and is aiming to take us through to an election where we are losing time and effort in trying to properly address the challenges ahead.”
He added: “If the Government is going to insist on doing that we are saying call the election now because clearly what you are saying is that nothing will be done on this particular matter until after a new government comes into office.
“Call the election now. If you are going to stay in office till the last day in September as you have said then do what is required to be done.”
He said citizens did not know the true state of the economy because the Government “has been fudging the numbers and eventually killed off the CSO.”
He said the true figures would only be known after this year’s general election.
“We will only find out the details of those arrangements after the next election,” he added.
He said the Government’s “inaction or crazy action” pose “threats to people of T&T not the Cabinet. Their bread butter with New Zealand’s best. It is the bread of the population that would be buttered with lard.”
He said the Government was “not worried at all because they have fixed themselves already.
flashback
The T&T Guardian, in an earlier report, indicated that the Securities Exchange probe into that IPO was complete. It centred around the purchase of 659,588 shares, worth $14.5 million, by the bank’s former chief risk officer, Phillip Rahaman in the IPO in July 2013.
He lodged his share application with Bourse Securities, although First Citizens has a subsidiary with a brokerage licence.
Bourse Securities chairman Subhas Ramkhelawan resigned as chairman of the T&T Stock Exchange on April 10, saying he was “fully confident that Bourse Securities will be fully vindicated when the facts are cleared up by the regulator.”
Rahaman sold some 634,588 shares on January 14, which amounted to 96 per cent of the shares he had purchased, at about $42.15 a share, which would have led to a profit of over $12 million in six months.
He would also have collected $718,950 in dividends as the bank distributed $1.09 a share to shareholders as at December 31, 2013.