Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s par­tial pay­ment of back­pay to pub­lic ser­vants, em­pha­sis­ing that it was ex­e­cut­ed re­spon­si­bly—with­out bor­row­ing or tap­ping in­to the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF). He said this was done de­spite the se­vere eco­nom­ic chal­lenges in­her­it­ed from the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Tan­coo said the pay­ment fol­lowed in­ten­sive ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), cul­mi­nat­ing in an agree­ment that al­lowed for a par­tial set­tle­ment of ar­rears ahead of Christ­mas.

He not­ed that once ne­go­ti­a­tions were con­clud­ed, the Gov­ern­ment faced the im­me­di­ate chal­lenge of iden­ti­fy­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to ho­n­our the agree­ment with­in a mat­ter of days.

“Find­ing the funds to meet the par­tial back pay be­fore Christ­mas was ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing giv­en the fi­nan­cial cri­sis that the for­mer gov­ern­ment left this coun­try in,” Tan­coo said.

He point­ed to re­duced rev­enue streams, which he at­trib­uted to the sab­o­tage of the Board of In­land Rev­enue and Cus­toms and Ex­cise, mas­sive lo­cal and for­eign debt, and bil­lions of dol­lars in un­paid bills owed to con­trac­tors and sup­pli­ers.

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter ex­plained that the ad­min­is­tra­tion was de­ter­mined to re­spect the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process while en­sur­ing that pay­ment did not com­pro­mise the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty.

“This com­mit­ment arose di­rect­ly out of ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volv­ing the CPO and the PSA,” he said. “Once that process was com­plet­ed, we had to act quick­ly, re­spon­si­bly, and with­in the law to ho­n­our what was agreed.”

Ac­cord­ing to Tan­coo, with the sup­port of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and se­nior pub­lic ser­vants at the Min­istry of Fi­nance, mul­ti­ple fi­nanc­ing op­tions were ex­plored.

“We con­sid­ered sev­er­al op­tions be­fore iden­ti­fy­ing a one-time method that was le­git­i­mate, law­ful, and could be ex­e­cut­ed with­in the tight time frame re­quired,” he said.

On Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the out­stand­ing ar­rears will be set­tled in the new year in ac­cor­dance with the law.

Dur­ing a toy dis­tri­b­u­tion ex­er­cise at her con­stituen­cy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so as­sured RHA work­ers that out­stand­ing pay­ments will be ad­dressed in the new year, while stress­ing that any set­tle­ment must be car­ried out in ac­cor­dance with the law.

Tan­coo al­so re­ject­ed claims by mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) that the pay­ment was fund­ed through bor­row­ing or by draw­ing down on the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF).

“De­spite the mis­in­for­ma­tion be­ing spewed by PNM talk­ing heads, this was ac­com­plished with­out bor­row­ing and with­out draw­ing down on the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund,” Tan­coo stat­ed.

Tan­coo ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of de­lib­er­ate­ly crit­i­cis­ing the pay­out while ig­nor­ing the con­text in which it was made.

“The PNM’s fix­a­tion on where the mon­ey came from on­ly high­lights the dam­age they caused to the econ­o­my,” he said. “They were against this par­tial pay­out be­fore Christ­mas from the very start, de­spite it be­ing root­ed in col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.”

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter sug­gest­ed that op­po­si­tion fig­ures used so­cial me­dia to con­demn the ini­tia­tive even as pub­lic ser­vants stood to ben­e­fit.

“I hope pub­lic ser­vants who have ben­e­fit­ed from this pay­out un­der­stand the di­rec­tion tak­en by the PNM,” he said, adding that the Op­po­si­tion’s ac­tions amount­ed to ob­struc­tion and mis­in­for­ma­tion.

De­spite these chal­lenges, Tan­coo said the Gov­ern­ment re­mained fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits to work­ers.

“I am proud that, de­spite mis­chief, mis­in­for­ma­tion and open ob­struc­tion, this Gov­ern­ment en­sured that pub­lic ser­vants re­ceived a par­tial pay­ment of ar­rears be­fore Christ­mas, as promised,” he said. “This is what re­spon­si­ble, peo­ple-cen­tred gov­er­nance looks like.”

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to get re­spons­es from mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les.