Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability, the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: We put some of these topics down. At this point in time we do have an interview for you. Let's welcome back to our program. Former finance minister now associated with the whole party is currently Mr. Sher. Good morning to you.
[00:00:21] Speaker C: Good morning to you and I'm happy to be with your guests and as usual on your station Freedom 106 FM.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Nice to have you with us here this morning. The political front is seems to be heating up. There's a lot happening. But before we get to that, let me get your comments on. Our prime minister had a lot to say yesterday about a number of different things. He spoke about this US Visa, the possibility of cancellations, the Dragon Gas deal and everything else. Let's get your opinion on some of the things that the prime minister had to say yesterday.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Unfortunately I don't listen to him on the Monday night talk. I really don't. It's a lot of politicking. But I don't know where I start with that. I mean if he was talking about the US Position, clearly Trump has taken a very harsh and all prisoners taken and clearly his eyes are set on Venezuela and seeing the collapse of the Maduro government and we are getting caught in the crossfire even more so we were under Biden but with Trump has become an even more real thing and a very personalized thing so that the Dragon fee was always at risk. I have been seeing that for at least a year and a half even under Biden, Shell who did not make a final investment decision and the extension that was granted by Biden by GL44amendment to allow us to pay for in currency for natural gas.
That comes to an end October 31st of this year and nothing has been done and nothing will be done because Shell investors will be full hardy to make an investment with a situation where Venezuela and the United States are clearly at really at a very critical position with all their attempts at bringing down Maduro having failed. And I don't think with the SOFA amendment included that the Dragonfield was ever going to come to pass. You just had to look at the OFAC every time the government would put emphasis on the 30 year lease by which we have been paying for. In any event, that's not the point. It's not the drug, it's not a 30 year lease. I think Maduro would give leases to many countries as long as they were going to pay him some US which he's badly in need of the deal was the ofac, the Office of Fixed Asset Control, which is a sanction that the United States uses to enforce compliance. And we could not get anything more than two years. And Shell wanted 15 years at minimum and were rejected. So that was never a done deal. In any case. I know you know that the minimum amount of natural gas which we need to support the LNG and the petrochemical industry, the Prime Minister's quoted as saying that in September 2022 it was. It's 4.1 billion cubic feet. We have now 2.4 billion cubic feet. So we don't have the production. And even if we got the gas from Dragonfly, I'm not sure if we. They don't seem to advertise that, but it would have taken two years to come to be able to be commercialized and utilized, exploited. And the initial amount would have been in the vicinity of about 175 million cubic feet. And it would take a few years for it to reach to the maximum of 350 million, 300 of which was going to LNG, which is where we don't make much revenue, and only 50 million was going to the downstream industry. So all this talk about Dragonfield being a savior, I think I was misleading and if I am a layperson, I don't have access to the Ministry of Finance inner workings, but I do look at CSO and Central Bank. It was never going to happen and they knew that.
That's just how it was. And coming now and talking about Trump as if Trump is the spoilers.
All that Rubio did was put a final nail in the coffin that Trump is not going to deal with Venezuela as long as Maduro is there. And we are caught in the grass fire.
The Dragonfield gas field of 4.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is all in Venezuelan waters. And America is not going to facilitate Maduro getting access to US currency because that's what we pay for gas and oil. He's not going to facilitate that. That is why, for example, with the Laurie Manatee field, most of which is in Venetitian waters, is a huge field. Very little is in our waters, but we still have about 2.7 billion cubic, I think trillion trillion cubic feet.
Shell had no problem signing the final investment decision. Why? Because Manatee part of that field is all in our waters. America doesn't have a problem with Trinidad, it has a problem with Venezuela and it's not going to go away. And therefore the Dragon Field and any other field concerning Venezuela are not greater.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: We realized what does that mean for us as a country, our economy, our future?
[00:05:56] Speaker C: I mean, why? You know, this is the unfortunate thing, you know, what does it mean? You don't have to be asking that question in 2025. That question was up for debate many, many years ago. So what does that mean? We are an energy sector economy essentially. We still are.
So the reality is yes, we're going to get some gas from the humanity field when it becomes operationalized because Shell has signed a final investment and PPTT with the. I always pronounce it badly. But anyway, the part that's in our waters, which is most of it, what does it mean? We're not going to be able to. As we are seeing LNG is and as the central bank has said, energy sector is in great decline. Now this year we might see an uptick not because of production, because we do not have the production. It's 1.9 billion at minimum cubic feet per day of a shortfall. So there's no way the production is going to happen anytime soon. So that what it means is what is a good thing which happened in 2022 is that the price of natural gas has been going way above $3 which was the budget price. I didn't check today, but up to Yesterday it was over 4 something and has been trading at that level. So we might get another 2022 where production is less but the price is high. But that means shows you how vulnerable we are. So what are we going to do? Well, some of the things that we have recommend what, what is happening already is the restructuring of the petro train, which is the refinery which produces the fuel. So of course all that money that they've been spending on importing fuel, the limited US currency that we have, our foreign exchanges gone from 10 point something to 5.6, that's by half and some of it is being used to import the fuel. So what I imagine that they're going to do is suggestions had already been made. Since 2018 they don't implement anything, you know, just talk the talk, campaign financing, gambling, National Statistical Institute, the toco port, you name it, they don't do it. They are government for 10 years of non implementation. But what I think they may take up, they were supposed to have had a Solar Farm in 2018. Since 2018 that has not come to pass. But if they do implement a solar farm and the wind tunnel that the EU spoke about on the southwest peninsula and the east coast, we can also do that. We can generate other forms of electricity which will then free up the natural gas more that is necessary for lng. That's what it is. And that is what the downstream industries with the methanol, urea and ammonia need. That is what they use to produce their products. And we have seen all the gas to liquid efforts in the various iterations of all, the latest one being Necron. So I think what they should try to do is try to get other sources of energy, the solar and the wind to begin with to free up the natural gas. They should take the advice that had been given which was restructuring. But they also need to stop the process of the leasing to anyone unless the office of the procurement regulator is involved. They had to pass an amendment to the act in I think 2016. That's about nine years ago to allow for the sale of real estate or lease of real estate which the refinery fall under. But you needed to pass the regulations. Guess what? The Public Accounts Committee meeting held in January of this year, the Permanent Secretary said the planned cabinet has not rejected the regulation, they just have to approve it without the approval of that. That's why the procurement regulator who should really be overseeing and have oversight and monitoring of the process should be there. That's why we had situations of the Naveen Jindal who has been charged with money laundering and bribery in relation to a coal block in India and the Prime Minister obviously was pushing for him, had taken pictures in the residence and then turning around after it all was revealed that I didn't know, I didn't know. And then we had the Oando oil and which has been exposed that between 2011 and 2016 the government was defrauded. They called it the fuel subsidy fraud where these companies, Orlando being among them, were importing oil but fuel, importing fuel and claiming 900%. All the companies, not only Orlando but on Ando and two other companies were deemed to have defrauded the government by 3.6 trillion naira between 2011 and 2016.
Naira is 1 to 225 tower money but 3.65 trillion dollars is a lot and it involves fraud. That's who you have shortlisted. You started with Jindal, then you found out he's involved in corruption, then you start owning undo same situation. The regulations need to be passed and let the procurement regulator take over the whole exercise for the bidding and leasing of the refinery in a manner as intended by the procurement legislation. But again as usual they don't pass the regulations.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Whenever we have these discussions about energy, energy sector, economy, the term diversification comes up always as a former finance minister Somebody who's looking on at this.
How realistic is the possibility of us diversify. Diversifying and diversify into what?
[00:12:02] Speaker C: Of course there's a possibility and I've spoken about it and obviously that has got to be on the front seat. I mean it has to be in the front burner. You cannot.
The reason why we have reached. We have reached with the foreign exchange being 5.6 billion.
And I should mention that most of that foreign exchange which has been cut by half, most of it is debt because Dr. Arjun has spoken about it as other economists because of the continuous fiscal deficits with the expenditure being more than the revenue for the fiscal year which is September to September continuously except for 2022. In fact we would use less not natural gas that year but because of prices we saw a surplus first time in years. So the reality is that it is clear that we cannot continue to rely on it because we just simply do not have production. So I have spoken diversification, diversity, like if it's a bad word. But one of the things that clearly we need to look at is in my view I am a very great proponent. I've written years ago about cultural tourism. We have all the qualities, all the things that necessary infrastructure, Napa, Sapa, the Queensland, they've renamed it the stadia that are not in use. We have the like Mauritius. Mauritius had to do the same thing. They have a population similar to us and ethnic diversity similar to us. And when their sugar preferential treatment was taken away they turned to both financial and industry as well as cultural tourism. So I'm a great proponent of that. We have the music, we have the sukha, we have the chutney. We have the chutney sukha, we have the calypso and of course we have the Purana. Christmas time we have all the festivals of Paragua to Jose to Diwali to Eid Ul Fatir to our Christmas and of course the Carnival. We have the steel band which we can market and sell abroad. I know people who already do that and make substantial profits from selling one of a kind steel bands. And that can give opportunity to the small and medium enterprises. We also have beyond music, we have our food. We should go back to producing more rum based alcoholic beverages as well as the pacho cremas and other drinks. And what we need to do then is do like what they did in Barbados. They retain part of the sugar fields in St. John's in order to feed their rum factory. But we are, we are far ahead of them in that and there are far Greater opportunities to develop that the cocoa Trentario COCOA World Renowned 2023 the 2023 review of the economy said the Tritario cocoa had been destroyed by 90%. 90% and that is also there's opportunity to to produce from agriculture and agri industries and part of of course the cultural tourism. High quality chocolates both for export and for the cultural tourism. Coffee, coconut based products where the oil, the soaps etc. We have so many opportunities, different types of things that are unique to Trinidad and Tobago. The tulum, the fudges. But we've got to promote them in a way that they are high end first world marketing and branding. We also of course have the entertainment industry which we can have all year round with the pan and pan theaters and of course there's opportunities for persons to have people stay in the Airbnbs little small guest houses, small inns and the bigger hotels. Everybody can get a piece of the pie. And of course we have entertainment all year round with all those facilities that are available.
So when you do the SWOT analysis, yes there's opportunity for ecotourism, there's opportunity for medical tourism, there's opportunity for sport tourism which I think Jamaica has a handle on that. But what makes Trinidad unique is our culture, our culture of our people, diversity of our people and of course our training. We have university UTT Arthur Lochtar School of Business, University of the West Indies Costa have been training people in event planning, music industry, all the various areas. We also have the tours, the Temple by the Sea, the Americans of Moruga labrepichli Trinidad has endless opportunity to earn foreign exchange through cultural tourism and we have not. What we need to do though is set up an implementation committee made up of people who are highly trained and highly exposed in producing high end first world products and harness and pull together all these trends that can make up a cultural tourism product. Include community development and let them oversee the branding, the monitoring, the quality control over all the products that come. And of course agri and agri industries come in. We are importing over $7 billion in Caricom has said and got on record. I think Ghana has said that by 2025 we should be producing 25% of our food. We will go further than that. So we need to develop our agri and agri industries in the areas as I have already mentioned and also create some level of food security for Trinidad and lower foreign exchange consumption. So I would recommend also recommendations Rethinking the TTIFC we had reached very far in fact I had the gentleman who had done the legislation for the Irish IFC working in my office at the time to producing the legislation. And we were looking at the Dubai and the IRIS model and then came the global financial crisis and Lieben brothers who had signed an MOU with us to take up space in the ifc, well, they went under, but I don't think it's something we do need to revisit. And of course the yachting and bunkering facilities, we are outside the hurricane belt and we need to develop that and allow technicians apprenticeships and develop that area with vocational trading. But both with tourism and yachting. I do not suggest that we do anything until we get crime under hand because both of those, including the gambling, are opportunities for transnational organized crime, which is the main cause of, in my view, of the crime and explosion of gangs. But those are some of the ideas that are very feasible ideas for diversification. The uniqueness of our cultural offerings, our agri and agri industry, which we have a lot of experience in developing it because of the infrastructure, the people and the quality of their training and the education opportunities are granted through the various tertiary education. And of course we also need to relook at the TTIFC and the yachting. Those are some of the diversification which can produce. And I would want to say that when we talk about manufacturing, you have to recognize, as I've said, I think on your show already, much of the products that they use to so called produce, these manufacturing products are imported. You need foreign exchange for that, don't you? All that corn and red beans and black beans and all that that they've been canning in Trinidad, they're not growing it here. And even the canning material, the metal that they need to make the tins, they have to produce the raw material, they have to import the raw material and all of those things. We need foreign exchange for your cars, for your clothes, for your pharmaceuticals. There's nothing that we don't need foreign exchange. So the reality is we have got to pivot, not abandon foreign, don't abandon the energy sector. Perhaps we need to do more work with our CARICOM member.
We need to work with Ghana and Eastern Caribbean with developing the agri and agri industry.
And as I said, those are real opportunities. Places like Barbados and Eastern Caribbean, what do you think they depend on? Mosi? They depend on, they depend on tourism. And if you look at the growth we have negative 20% growth since 2015, even after Covid, Barbados, Jamaica, the EEC, those countries all after this a year show significant growth, some in 8%, 4%, but nothing like the anemic 1.5% that we had in 2022. So those are some of the solutions that I think we have to implement. And we have to be honest with the people about our state with the natural gas production and look at other renewable sources to limit our need for natural gas, because we do need it for the downstream industry and the lng. But we also need to, of course, look at other foreign exchange earners, which can be significant. Jamaica depends a lot on their tourism that makes it, but also remittances.
We are going to be seeing more and more as long as Trump doesn't send them. Everybody who.
We're seeing what we never had before in Trinidad, Guyana and Jamaica for many, many years, a large percentage of their gross domestic product, the goods and values that they said they would have produced for the year, a lot of it was accounted for. Remittances from family and family members living in England and United States, sending money back. We had reverse remittances at that time because we were doing so well.
There has been a change now, so we can't discount the use of remittances to help us with our economic problems, which we definitely do have at this point in time.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: There's a lot to consider, a number of points there.
[00:22:48] Speaker C: You didn't stop me, so I continued.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Because I wanted you to continue and explain fully. But we're almost out of time. It's amazing how quickly time got away from us. So let's change gears just a bit and focus on the politics of what's going on. A lot of activity. You're hearing all kinds of things from everybody. The PNM going to announce the 41 candidates on Sunday. The UNC announcing candidates a little bit. A little bit. And we have other parties making announcements. We were told recently that the whole party had entered into some sort of. I don't want to use the word alliance, but parties.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: Oh, you can use that word. That's the correct word.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Yeah. With nta.
What's going on with that at this point in time?
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Well, that is still ongoing. In fact, we had a meeting with the alliance. I usually have a Saturday meeting, Saturday morning meeting, and we had it as usual.
Politics is, you know, a shifting sand nearly on a daily basis. And what was what I can see on regards to. With regards to that, we understand that standing alone, we're looking at elections. There's no point you getting a lot of votes and you don't win seats.
No, you're glad oh because I'm upside down all the time. And by the way, I've been upside down. I don't know why, but I suppose any stage that I may be right side up. Yes. So the question is an alliance is a a facility or initiative where people bring together parties that might have their differences in delivery, might have differences in specific areas. But if there are similarities in what are the main issues and what are the main driving forces to turn around and restore and rebuild our economy. And we are at the same point in that. Certainly we understand that is important that all the various parties, the nta, Hope and other parties who we hope will join us will be a force to reckon with. Because we know we can't win 41 seats, we know we can't win 20 something seats. But what we say and what we hope, and I do meet, no pun intended, but with the NTA Hope and perhaps other parties that will join with us copies of Flux at this moment. But we certainly do have the support of the person who considers himself still to be the head of Corp. What we do have is an intention that because the voting between the two last election was the lowest 50 point something percent. And the point is because of the first party post system where half the country and we're spread still along ethnic lines and religious lines, Christian versus mostly Hindu and Muslim to a lesser extent. But ethnic division is definitely there. What we do have in the first party post is that we don't just have a division, but we have a division along racial lines. And that cannot be right. So what we hope to do is that at least win a certain number of seats and given the closeness between the two parties that no party can have a sufficient majority to win or to run the government without our third force. That is what we are seeing and our third force. Without our third force no one has that majority. And I would not think that the President would be hard pressed to try to say he's in her opinion. We did that already with Iyanna Robinson and the PNM went back to election. That's no way to run a country. So we are saying that we believe in the marginal seats. Tigo Martin or any 40 something percentile was a turnout and the other seats that we are looking at. And once between nta, NTA sends up a candidate, it's an alliance candidate. If Hope sends up a candidate, it's an alliance candidate. But we are not going to set up a candidate of hope and NTA in a constituency. It's either one or the Other, but you will be voted for alliance. And we hope through that approach that we can win enough seats. And enough seats is not many because it takes very little, it takes a lot to form a majority in Trinidad because of the closeness. And we're seeing that if we're going to restore and rebuild Trinidad and Tobago with a third force. Your vote will not be wasted. Your vote will be for the change that both parties are looking for, because there is disenchantment and cynicism on both sides of the divide. There's no question about that. And I think the country wants a change, but the. The concern they have is, would I be wasting a vote? We say, no, you're not going to waste a vote, because we are coming together and we feel strongly that if you who complain and you who are unhappy and understandably give that vote to one or other, you are voting for their lives. At the end of the day, when you have the elections and in the event that should the PNM have the majority of these seats, we don't know what will happen because the Prime Minister will no longer be PM or MP and is positioned as party leader, which can act as an incentive for persons to vote for Stuart Young in a very undemocratic way. Because I'm sure if they had a special convention he had stepped on as party leader, Stuart Young would never be.
So that's a whole thing by itself. So we'll see what will happen. And we feel that we can bring about the change that people want and implement something that this government is incapable of doing, Incapable of doing. Starting with campaign financing. We're strong on that. Starting with having an economic advisory board that has statutory powers, just like in Jamaica. Starting with a National Statistical institute at the IMF up to the last visit recommended starting with passing the regulation so that the Office of Patrolman Regulator will oversee the bidding for the refinery.
Passing the gambling commission with some changes that need to be made. You know, there's so much. The Toku port that is yet to see the light of day. You know, they have just been a complete failure in implementing. And one thing you could say about the alliance and certainly Louis Lee Singh, myself and Timothy, as our political leader, we have proven track records. I've written three legal textbooks and they're still being used, especially one on probate. And when they had the NAFTA poll two weeks before the last election, which I participated, I got a whopping 90. I'm using their words, a whopping 98% approval raising for American City. So you have to wonder how come I didn't win. But that's another story. So I am MP that works. And minister that does. And I can say the same thing for Timothy and for Louis.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. We're gonna have to leave it here this morning, but I'm sure that we're gonna have a number of other discussions because.
[00:30:08] Speaker C: You had me here. Let me give you my piece of paper. I hope I'm upside down on your television, on your program on gender quotas. You may be going to look it up. And I looked up the gender quotas in a different type of quota system. But another time.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Another time. Thank you so much for being with us here.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
