CARICOM LOBBIES TRUMP

Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday revealed that a lobby team is being sought among Caricom leaders to steer the process, which is expected to cost the region some US$240,000.

“It is only for a short period, a specific assignment for $40,000 a month __ the period for which the lobbyist will he hired to carry out this specific exercise,” he told reporters in a news conference at the Diplomatic Lounge of the Piarco International Airport, shortly after his return to TT following the 28th Intersessional Meeting of the Heads of the Caricom Community in Georgetown, Guyana.

Rowley did not say if there was a deadline for the lobbyist team to be retained.

The Prime Minister said FATCA was one of the main items on the agenda at the two-day conference.

“The other area that was of great interest, and I would not say alarm, but strong concern is the whole question of the threat to our banking system and the threat that this poses to economic collapse in the region, if we are, in fact, to find ourselves determined as a high risk area and lose our correspondent banking facilities,” he said.

The move comes as the Rowley- led People’s National Movement (PNM) Government is seeking to bring closure to the controversial debate on the legislation with a vote on Thursday in the House of Representatives following the deliberations of a parliamentary Joint Select Committee (JSC) which had been appointed to consider dicey clauses in the legislation.

Rowley has, on more than one occasion, expressed his frustration with the Opposition for its reluctance to support the legislation.

FATCA was enacted by the US government in March 2010. It requires foreign financial institutions to report directly to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) all clients who are US citizens, green card holders living in the US or abroad, or foreign entities in which US taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest.

The legislation requires US citizens and green card holders with financial assets outside of the US exceeding US$500,000 to report these assets to the IRS.

Following last Monday’s sitting of the Parliament, the Opposition had called for the bill to be sent back to the JSC for one more week to complete certain aspects of the issue.

The JSC met five times between January 13 an February 1.

The Opposition has accused the Government of high-handedness in wanting to rush through the debate on the legislation in accordance with its own deadline and not the one set by the United States Treasury. Saying that FATCA continued to be a “front burner matter,” Rowley yesterday said Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, at the last meeting of regional heads in July, was detailed by Caricom to lead the Community’s response in “lobbying at the various metropolitan areas” to ensure that Caricom’s banking system is not denied access to the correspondent banks which are necessary for our trade.” He said Browne presented a report on the exercise at the just-concluded meeting.

“It maintains that we are at great risk and a decision was taken at this meeting to encourage all countries to move with great urgency to ensure that we pass the necessary legislation to ensure that we are compliant with the international standards that are demanded of us and that we ensure that we make every effort to lobby in the relevant quarters so that our case is made known and we do not get treated adversely by accident,” Rowley said.

“Against this background, the work of the Prime Minister of Antigua Barbuda indicated that he had identified by that effort, that adequate lobbying arrangements be put in place but there was a cost to that and that cost is US$240,000.” Rowley said the heads have agreed that the cost of the lobby team should be incurred.

“The lobby should be hired and put to work to join the efforts made by Caricom to ensure that we stave off any further de-risking or loss of correspondent banking access because we, at the level of Caricom, understand the devastating effects that that is having on those territories which are already exposed to it and could have to those countries which may lose their correspondent banking business,” he said.

Commenting on the development yesterday, Opposition MP Dr Roodal Moonilal said the regional leaders should have shown some fortitude.

“On the last occasion on Monday, I took note of the Prime Minister’s statement in Parliament and he did indicate he was on the way to Guyana to meet Caricom leaders to discuss FATCA,” he said.

“I got the impression that the Caricom leaders were meeting in Georgetown to surrender and to discuss the rate of their compliance rather than a critical appraisal of the FATCA.” Moonilal noted the initiative involving professors Kenneth Hall and Compton Bourne and former Barbados prime minister Owen Arthur, who had met recently in New York to discuss “a critical appraisal of the FATCA and the extent to which it hinders trade and development in the region.” “But the prime ministers of the Caribbean appear to have surrendered and the leaders should be showing more fortitude on these matters.” Moonilal said the region had produced late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, late Grenada prime minister Maurice Bishop and former Guyana president Cheddi Jagan and other distinguished leaders of the last generation.

“And they would turn in their collective graves when they here that the Caricom leaders surrender to this level of economic imperialism,” he said.

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad- Bissessar, in a letter dated January 13, 2017, wrote to President Trump asking him whether his government intends to nullify the FATCA.