BWEE/LIAT DECISION SOON

Trade Minister Ken Valley is confident that Government will reach a decision on the fate of BWIA and LIAT within six months and “perhaps even quicker, by the end of the first quarter of this year.” “Clearly by the end of the second quarter for the latest,” he said. Valley was responding to statements that the talk about settling the problems of BWIA and LIAT have been around for very long. He was speaking at the post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall.

Valley said Government decided that both BWIA and LIAT had to be fixed since “it was no good putting two dead horses together.” Valley said the Government, which had loaned money to the shareholder governments of LIAT, had been repaid by all the governments, with the exception of Guyana, which got debt forgiveness from Trinidad and Tobago.