The Op­po­si­tion’s Shad­ow Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, MP Dave Tan­coo has made a call for the lo­cal busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to de­mand fair ac­cess to for­eign ex­change (forex) from the gov­ern­ment.

Tan­coo made this call to ac­tion fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion by the T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce en­ti­tled, “Chal­lenges in Ac­cess­ing For­eign Ex­change” based on a sur­vey of 111 of the Cham­ber’s mem­ber com­pa­nies.

The Op­po­si­tion MP said that he has re­peat­edl­ly cau­tioned the gov­ern­ment about the for­eign ex­change sit­u­a­tion, and said the re­port had giv­en the busi­ness the ev­i­dence it need­ed to lob­by for a change in the sys­tem.

“With the proof now be­fore the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, I am call­ing on them to de­mand fair ac­cess to for­eign ex­change; to de­mand that Colm Im­bert stop his old talk and emp­ty promis­es about eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery and forg­ing path­ways to pros­per­i­ty. This Gov­ern­ment is un­able and un­will­ing to re­store con­fi­dence in the econ­o­my, or even to at­tract lo­cal and/or for­eign in­vest­ment that des­per­ate­ly need­ed. The on­ly so­lu­tion is change; we need change now,” Tan­coo said.

He al­so ques­tioned the state of the coun­try’s debt giv­en sit­u­a­tion.

The Oropouche West MP added, “The fact that the coun­try is in a for­eign ex­change cri­sis with for­eign ex­change re­serves now at the same lev­el as our for­eign debt and with no new rev­enue sources on the hori­zon, it is not a ques­tion of ‘whether’ but rather ‘when’ Im­bert will again raid the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund to prop up the forex re­serves and cre­ate the il­lu­sion of forex sta­bil­i­ty.”