Young: Interference in banking sector could trigger economic crisis

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has al­leged that po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in T&T’s largest in­dige­nous fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion can threat­en con­fi­dence in the coun­try’s bank­ing sys­tem, as he ques­tioned the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the de­par­ture of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd’s (RFHL) ex­ec­u­tive Richard Sam­my and chal­lenged Gov­ern­ment’s claims that for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty has im­proved.

Ad­dress­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic meet­ing at City Hall in Port-of-Spain on Fri­day night, Young de­liv­ered a sharp cri­tique of the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of key eco­nom­ic is­sues, warn­ing sup­port­ers that po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in ma­jor fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

His com­ments cen­tred on Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings, fol­low­ing last week’s an­nounce­ment that Sam­my had left the com­pa­ny by mu­tu­al agree­ment.

Sam­my had pre­vi­ous­ly been iden­ti­fied as the suc­ces­sor to long-serv­ing group pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive Nigel Bap­tiste and was ex­pect­ed to as­sume the role from Jan­u­ary 1, 2027. Re­fer­ring to Sam­my’s de­par­ture, Young sug­gest­ed the de­vel­op­ment de­served close pub­lic scruti­ny.

“You see what hap­pened this week with the re­moval and the res­ig­na­tion of Richard Sam­my? This one painful to say,” Young told sup­port­ers, adding, “Mark my words, and keep your eyes on it very, very close. Be­cause if what we hear on the ground is true and they have any truth to it about re­mov­ing peo­ple be­cause they ain’t giv­ing mon­ey to cer­tain friends and fi­nanciers of the UNC, we in re­al trou­ble in this coun­try.”

Young ar­gued that con­fi­dence in the coun­try’s bank­ing sec­tor is crit­i­cal to eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and warned against what he de­scribed as at­tempts to in­flu­ence in­sti­tu­tions for po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es.

“You must nev­er in­ter­fere with our banks and our fi­nan­cial sys­tem be­cause you could bring col­lapse to Trinidad and To­ba­go... Be­cause if they con­tin­ue in­ter­fer­ing, and the on­ly rea­son they want to in­ter­fere there and put their peo­ple in place—you know why? They want to dip their hand,” he al­leged.

Young al­so raised con­cerns about the avail­abil­i­ty of for­eign ex­change, re­ject­ing claims that ac­cess to US cur­ren­cy has im­proved.

He ar­gued that or­di­nary cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es con­tin­ue to face dif­fi­cul­ties ob­tain­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy through com­mer­cial banks de­spite as­sur­ances from the Gov­ern­ment that con­di­tions have im­proved.

“I want to ask now, any­body in this room could walk in­to the bank now and get any amount of US that they ask for? The an­swer is no,” he said adding, “Peo­ple go­ing to the bank, they can’t even get a hun­dred US.”

The for­mer prime min­is­ter said the con­tin­ued short­age of for­eign ex­change re­mains one of the coun­try’s most press­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, af­fect­ing con­sumers, busi­ness­es and over­all con­fi­dence in the econ­o­my.

While Young trained his fire on eco­nom­ic is­sues, PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les de­liv­ered a mes­sage cen­tred on par­ty re­build­ing and elec­tion prepa­ra­tion.

She stressed that in­ter­nal uni­ty would be es­sen­tial if the par­ty hopes to re­gain po­lit­i­cal ground at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el, say­ing, “We can­not af­ford at this point in time to be still quar­relling, to be still com­plain­ing who you like, who you ain’t like. Those days fin­ished.”

Her com­ments come as the par­ty con­tin­ues ef­forts to re­group fol­low­ing its de­feat in the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion and as prepa­ra­tions in­ten­si­fy for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

Beck­les said con­stituen­cy groups must be­come more ac­tive and urged sup­port­ers who had drift­ed away from the par­ty to re­turn.

“We can­not win elec­tions with­out unit­ing and with­out en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to come back to the fold. There are all kinds of rea­sons why some peo­ple didn’t vote. We’re not go­ing back there. But in or­der to win, every­body has to be on board,” she said.

She ar­gued that a unit­ed par­ty would be ca­pa­ble of over­com­ing elec­toral bound­ary changes and oth­er chal­lenges ex­pect­ed dur­ing the cam­paign.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who al­so spoke, used his ad­dress to raise con­cerns about what he de­scribed as a weak­en­ing of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions and in­creas­ing po­lit­i­cal con­trol of the State.

Im­bert ar­gued that T&T was ex­hibit­ing what he called ten warn­ing signs as­so­ci­at­ed with coun­tries mov­ing to­wards au­thor­i­tar­i­an rule.

Among the is­sues he iden­ti­fied were the con­cen­tra­tion of po­lit­i­cal pow­er, de­clin­ing par­lia­men­tary in­de­pen­dence, at­tacks on le­gal in­sti­tu­tions, politi­ci­sa­tion of the pub­lic ser­vice, hos­til­i­ty to­wards in­de­pen­dent me­dia and ef­forts to un­der­mine in­sti­tu­tions that chal­lenge gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions.

“When you have these ten things, and this is hap­pen­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we are on our way to be­com­ing a dic­ta­tor­ship,” Im­bert said as he urged, “And we have to push back. You have to push back. You can’t be qui­et.”