$500M more for Caroni

Caroni’s continuous call on the Treasury led to an emergency Cabinet meeting yesterday morning in which Government agreed to put some TT $489.3 million into the State-owned company in order to keep it operating until September. This decision came after Caroni informed Government that it had no money to continue its operations.

And as he detailed the almost bottomless pit of massive debt, Trade Minister Ken Valley told the House of Representatives yesterday, that the taxpayer just could not afford to support Caroni any longer. The company, since the first Manning administration had soaked up over $5 billion in state funding, Valley revealed. He said Caroni had used up its entire budgetary allocation for recurrent expenditure amounting to $90 million by the first week of March. Valley said when Government decided to offer Caroni workers an enhanced Voluntary Separation Package (VSEP), it had to also assume responsibility for meeting the deficit on the employees’ pension plan. The entire cost of this was estimated at $1 billion.

Valley said Caroni’s total “borrowing” to be undertaken at this time was $1.5 billion. He stressed that this did not include $735 million in loans being serviced by the government. Nor did it include the $300 million due to the State in respect of outstanding statutory liabilities (taxes, NIS, Green Fund etc). Valley stated that to date Caroni had sucked up for this year $2.614.3 billion which consisted of: a) deficit financing of $579.3 million ($489.3 million plus the $90 million given in the budget); b) debts being serviced by the State — $735 million; c) outstanding statutory liabilities of $300 million and $1 billion for the VSEP and associated liabilities.

He said when one added the $2.4 billion which was written off by the previous PNM adminstration, it took the figure to $5 billion. “What are you trying to say?” UNC MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar asked impatiently. Valley replied sternly: “Listen carefully — Caroni in its present form, is a cost which cannot be sustained by the taxpayer”.