PNM Senator says pensions will drive T&T to IMF

Opposition Senator Faris Al-Rawi is worried that the People's Partnership plan to increase pension for senior to $3,000 a month could force the country to seek help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking in the Senate, Al-Rawi said businesses in the country are at a standstill because of the Government’s delay in appointing new boards to state enterprises.

He was making his contribution on a Government motion on the State of the Economy, which was presented by Planning Minister Mary King three weeks ago.

Al-Rawi estimated that the country would need an additional $5 billion a year to fund the pension plan and warned that the plan would lead to “a non-equitable distribution of monies across the board.”

He added: “Without the reform of the pension laws in a holistic sense, we would be heading along the trap that Greece is in now, where it is dire straights and heading to the IMF solely over its pension issue."

The Senator claimed that it would cost $25 billion to fund the pension up to 2015.

Commenting on the plan for thousands of laptop computers for children entering high school in September, Al-Rawi said there is no current curriculum for form ones relative to computers and computer-training.

He added, "There is no storage facility in any school. There is no electrical capacity in any school. There is no programme for stakeholders — parents and teachers.”

He claimed that the economy was "sound" when the People’s Partnership assumed office and urged the new government to further strengthen the economy by adopting "appropriate policy measures".

The Senator also challenged Attorney General Anand Ramlogan to produce the evidence to support his claims of corruption and mismanagement against Manning government.

Ramlogan said he plans to release the documentary evidence to support his corruption claim, adding that he does not need Parliamentary protection to speak about corruption under Manning.

“I intend to repeat them publicly, without Parliamentary privileges because these are the facts of the matter...So that I take your advice, Sir, but I had already decided that these matters will be made public inside and outside the Parliament,” Ramlogan told the Senate.

Ramlogan also raised an issue of apparent overpayment for gloves. He said a letter from Stephen Aboud of Pharmaco, a company which shared a NIPDEC awarded contract for the supply of gloves with a company called Sun Crest International.

Pharmaco's price was $17.50, Sun Crest International's was $27.80, even though both products met exactly the same standards, Ramlogan noted.

Aboud wrote NIPDEC's General Manager Wendy Ali, asking the justification for sharing the contract with a supplier whose price was 50 per cent higher than his company's price.

He also insisted that the adjudicators who awarded the contract to Sun Crest be banned from participating in tender evaluations.

Aboud also asked to see the historical data of all purchase orders for gloves for the past five years "in order to eliminate suspicion that there exists collusion between NIPDEC and a preferred supplier".