Rowley: UNC dishonest on credit ratings

Explaining that spending and earning patterns influence credit ratings of a country, Rowley said, “They (UNC) know what the story is but there is a condition that they are very silent on.” He said that condition is, “what are the options, what is the alternative.” Saying the UNC is “suddenly very bright,” Rowley said the Opposition is pretending $20 billion in revenue lost under the PP, opened the door to the possibility of TT’s credit ratings being downgraded.

Rowley said the UNC is silent on how to avoid a downgrade because, “had we done what the ‘classroom experts’ say to do, we would have avoided being downgraded.” Rowley said from 2014 to 2016, Government subsidised water, fuel, social programmes, GATE, UWI and UTT and the inter-island ferry service to the tune of $6 billion, $13 billion, $12 billion, $3.2 billion and $250 million respectively. He added that the Public Service wage bill during this period was $20.7 billion.

Rowley said there would have been severe hardship for the population had Government done any drastic cuts in any of these areas.

Telling supporters, “there are serious downsides to devaluation,” Rowley claimed, “There are some people who are hoarding the Central Bank injections, hoping for a devaluation.” To those people who claim a devaluation could make more foreign exchange available in TT, Rowley said, “It is not arithmetic.” He said a devaluation means, “less US dollars will be converted to TT dollars” and this could result in even less foreign exchange being available. Rowley said the same people who are demanding a devaluation of the TT dollar, “will be at the front of the line shouting, ‘inflation gone up’.