COVID-19: Trinidad & Tobago will not seek financial assistance from IMF

The Rowley administration has dismissed suggestions that Trinidad & Tobago was seeking financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help shore up the country’s economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert, responding to a question from the Opposition in the Senate, said that the country’s credit-worthiness on the international market is such that it would be in its interest, if it needs, to seek funding on the open market.

Imbert said that there had been several rumors regarding plans by the administration to seek funding from the IMF, and blamed the main Opposition United National Congress (UNC) for spreading those lies.

“At this time the government is not seeking budgetary support. Our loan financing from any financial institution, that requires structural adjustment,” Imbert told legislators.

“Rumors to the contrary, such as those propagated by Opposition MPs in March of this year about a World Bank loan for COVID-19 support, are completely false.”

The finance minister said that this time the government has the “capability and the credit-worthiness to access financing, both locally and internationally, at competitive rates without conditionalities.”

He told legislators that the credit worthiness is a positive for Trinidad & Tobago and that there’s no need to make any changes.

“This fact was demonstrated last year when, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Finance was able to raise US$500 million or TT$3.4 billion in a few hours on the international market at a very competitive rate of 4.5 percent over 10 years with no conditionalities,” he said, adding that “this situation has not changed”. -(CMC)