Childish, fast, loose with her language, ridiculous and absurd.
That’s how acting Prime Minister and Finance Minister Colm Imbert yesterday described the actions of Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who on Monday at a public meeting in Fyzabad claimed that Government’s National Investment Fund (NIF) is a Ponzi scheme and urged the population not to invest in NIF bonds.
But speaking at yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing, Imbert said in the 2018 national budget he made it clear that in order to meet our expenditure targets, they would rely upon the recovery of Clico’s assets using the NIF to generate capital revenue of $4 billion.
Without the $4 billion, Imbert said, it would be difficult for Government to meet its expenditure for 2018, which includes payments of salaries, pensions and basic goods and services.
“For reasons best known to herself, the Opposition Leader has tried to undermine the national budget, because she is bad mouthing the NIF that is going to be launched on July 15.”
He said if Persad-Bissessar’s propaganda campaign against the NIF works in a small way, “it can undermine the budget and the ability of the country to operate.”
Imbert said Persad-Bissessar’s statement was highly irresponsible, reprehensible and “disturbs the country’s equilibrium and poisons the mind of the little people” from benefiting from this tremendous opportunity.
“She was very fast and loose with her language. The very idea of referring to the NIF bonds as a Ponzi scheme is absurd. I would even say it is childish coming from the Leader of the Opposition. Childish and unpatriotic. Ridiculous... dangerous assertions...baseless, groundless, irrational statements coming out of the Leader of the Opposition.”
Imbert said anyone who is familiar with a Ponzi scheme would know it is a form of fraud.
“It’s an illusion. In a Ponzi scheme, you trick investors into investing into an imaginary product. You don’t have the money to repay them.”
Imbert said the NIF would own $8 billion in assets but was only offering $4 billion in bonds, which he said was a gift to the nation.
“So it has $4 billion in reserves. The only way the Leader of the Opposition’s assertion could possibly be true is if $4 billion just disappears from Republic Bank’s balance sheet.”
He said anyone who invests in the NIF would get a guaranteed return.
On Wednesday, Imbert said the Caribbean Credit Rating Agency gave the NIF bonds a double A investment rating. (See page A18)
Imbert said while Persad-Bissessar tried to paint the NIF in a bad light, she had offered no suggestions as to what could have been done to the Clico assets.
In response last evening however, Persad-Bissessar maintained that the NIF “is an ill-conceived, vague, deceptive Ponzi-like scheme being piloted by an equally vague and deceptive and incompetent Government”.
Persad-Bissessar called on Imbert to address the ten NIF concerns she raised. She also questioned why Government was borrowing from the public by way of bonds instead of selling shares to the public as promised and asked if Imbert had calculated the profits of the companies placed in the NIF over the life of the bonds.
