Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley says the People’s Partnership Government should accept “personal and direct” blame for the Moody’s downgrade of this country.
He made the comment in an impromptu interview in the Parliament yesterday, as he labelled the situation a “day of shame” in T&T history. He said Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar was hoping the downgrade would not happen before the general election.
“Today is a day of shame in T&T. What’s going on in the Parliament is a shame and our avoidable downgrade is also a shame.”
Rowley said even in the face of “the dramatic decline in oil prices, the Government was telling us nothing should or would change because they were running surplus in the face of that revenue (shortfall).”
He said the Opposition had been demanding for several months that the Government “come clean with the population.”
According to Rowley, the Moody’s downgrade was due to the continuous budget deficit with no plan by the Government to deal with it.
“This Government has run a deficit in every single budget, spending far more than we were earning and there was no plan to change that, (only) old talk,” he added.
Rowley said another reason for the downgrade was the effect of the oil price decline on the economy and that prospects for growth were not being achieved.
He said this was quite contrary to what the Finance and the Economy Minister Larry Howai had been telling citizens and he accused the Government of “fabricating growth rates for us when in fact we were going over a cliff and the Government was telling us the opposite.”
Rowley said the downgrade was also caused by the non-existent or unreliable data.
“This Government has taken active steps to prevent the operations of a Central Statistics Office so we could get good data...so we now have to rely on ministerial misrepresentations and half-truths,” he said.
“Moody’s had a good look at T&T over a protracted period and came to the conclusion that the country’s creditworthiness is not going to be based on what the Government says, but on what the facts are.”
He said the downgrade would have adverse consequences as investments might be hindered.
“It is not a good thing for T&T and it was entirely avoidable,” Rowley told reporters.
“This Government has just been engaging in spending, spending, spending with no plan,” he said, adding that Moody’s had been “very critical of the government’s macroeconomic polices.”
He also said the government’s involvement in and management of the Central Bank’s affairs had been very poor.
He added, “They have cried down all the attempts to stabilise revenues, they have brought in no new revenue-raising measures, so now Moody’s is saying ‘if you are running up debt, where are the payment considerations?’”
He also said the Government was not committed to managing the economy but only to seeking his destruction so that the PP could have a chance to win the next election.
Rowley said the downgrade “will only add fuel to that loss of confidence in the economy and our operations and will fuel the requirement for the black market in the purchase of US currency.” Moody’s recommendations “are the precursors to IMF-kind of recommendations,” he added.