Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said Monday her Government will find "creative and innovative" ways of settling the huge debt it inherited from the Manning PNM administration.
"You have public servants waiting to be paid. You have police officers, teachers. You have everyone wanting more and the Treasury...There may be creative ways of trying to settle the debt, in terms of maybe shares, granting shares in particular State assets," she told reporters following an address to the Energy Chamber at the Trinidad Hilton.
She added, "We would like to pay everybody, every cent that they are owed. But we must face the reality of this time."
Among the debt owed by the state is the sum of $60 million outstanding to companies for work done at the gas-to-liquid plant at Petrotrin.
"You have public servants waiting to be paid. You have police officers, teachers. You have everyone wanting more and the Treasury...There may be creative ways of trying to settle the debt, in terms of maybe shares, granting shares in particular State assets," she told reporters following an address to the Energy Chamber at the Trinidad Hilton.
She added, "We would like to pay everybody, every cent that they are owed. But we must face the reality of this time."
Among the debt owed by the state is the sum of $60 million outstanding to companies for work done at the gas-to-liquid plant at Petrotrin.
Persad-Bissessar did not wish to discuss details of how the government would pay the debt. "It is something I would prefer to discuss at another time. I can't give you a straight answer so I would not want to mislead you," she said.
"The only assurance we can give is that we would try our best so to do."
No comments:
Post a Comment