CAL chairman says airline's financial situation not gloomy as it seems

Rabindra Moonan

The chairman of Caribbean Airlines (CAL) acknowledged on Friday that the debt figure quoted in Parliament by Finance Minister Winston Dookeran is accurate. However he said things are not as bad as they seem.

Moonan said information provided to him suggest that “we deal with revolving debt," noting that the debt to the Airports Authority (AATT) dates to 2007, the nyear CAL began operations.

He said his predecessor, George Nicholas III negotiated a settlement of TT6 million with the AATT and CAL is in the process of negotiating a repayment plan.

Moonan said when the Authority raised the user fee in 2007 from TT$.50 per square metre to TT$2.50 the airline continued to pay the old rate because, “no agreement had been put in place.”

The chairman said the overall picture of CAL’s financial income and expenditure will become clearer when the Board meets for the first time under his chairmanship.

He said he cannot speak about the all the accounting matter mentioned by Dookeran before seeing the figures next week. However, he assured local media that based on what he has seen so far CAL is in no danger of being grounded by US authorities because it owes money to American revenue authorities.

“That is a revolving debt, similar to what we owe NP (National Petroleum)...we pay them money every week. The situation is not as gloomy as it seems,” Moonan said.