San Fernando East Member of Parliament and former minister in the Ministry of Finance Brian Manning, says he expects a self-inflicted recession in the coming months, as a result of government action and a lack of foreign exchange availability.
Manning, who spoke at a People’s National Movement (PNM) public meeting in Pleasantville San Fernando on Tuesday evening said he believed that a devaluation of the Trinidad and Tobago dollar (TTD) is coming, in light of recent tariffs imposed by the US government.
“It is unfortunate, but what this government is doing, it is clear as day that is happening,” Manning said of the economic state of the country.
“Those tariffs are going to exacerbate the shortage of foreign exchange in this country and put further pressure on our exchange rate. The exchange rate in this country is based on supply and demand and we have high demand and lower supply. That is going to force a devaluation in this country. Folks, we only have this government to blame,” he said.
Manning said economists around the country were sending warnings on the shortage of supplies. He said the United National Congress (UNC) had attempted to deceive citizens into believing that the former administration was at fault.
“All the time they were trying to deceive you that somehow the previous government just didn’t want to give you US, that something was wrong with the distribution system, that they were only giving to their family and friends, that you couldn’t get any. Total nonsense.”
“We had a shortage in supply. When this previous government was struggling to take care of the people of this country, they were the ones calling for sanctions from the US locally and internationally on their own country and people now the US has sanctioned this country with tariffs, let me see what they are going to say,” said Manning.
Honeymoon over
Manning said he was issuing a warning to the government that its honeymoon, after 100 days in office, was over. He said the Opposition would not sit ‘idly’ by but planned to defend the people of the country.
Although PNM supporters may have abstained from the polls in the last general election, he said, they were still alive.
Members of the government, he claimed, were already being booed.
“I want to offer them a warning that the honeymoon is over, the opposition is not going to sit idly by and let this government run roughshod over the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Do not let your overwhelming numbers in the parliament fool you. Some PNM supporters in the last election did not show up, but they did not disappear.”
“They are all still alive and well in this country and we are not going to sit by and allow victimization. Already members of that party are being summarily booed everywhere they go. It is a short honeymoon because the people of this country feel deceived. We are getting exactly what we expected,” he said.
Making reference to Minister Clyde Elder, a former trade unionist, he said union leaders involved with the government owed the people of the country an apology. On the termination of Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP) contracts, he said leaders of these movements had gone silent.
“Trade union leaders who are supposed to be the representatives of the working class and the people in this country, all of a sudden wearing jackets and ties, up on two legs. A man who was in office for barely three months now, when asked about the tens of thousands of CEPEP URP and forestry workers, summarily dismissed from their jobs, described them callously as collateral damage,” he said.
“We have trade union leaders in this country who are no longer loyal to their membership, they are loyal to their UNC masters. You are seeing it loud and clear. Union leaders making hundreds of thousands a month off their membership dues talking about their members and the working class while kissing up and answering to the Prime Minister,” he said.
Manning called statements made by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in July that the country has become a nation of “grass cutters”- disrespectful.
‘My grandmother told me there is nothing wrong with an honest day’s work …. they couldn’t even wait. They were excited to put all those people on the breadline in this country.”
“When you ask them about the economy, how is it that these persons who were made unemployed, who were already some of the most vulnerable in this country, where will they be absorbed, where can they find alternative employment, the Prime Minister is seen calling for divine intervention. I want to tell the PM something else my grandmother told me, ‘Faith without work is dead,” he said.