Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and the Congress of the People (COP) yesterday accused the Government of attempting to “hound” Central Bank governor Jwala Rambarran out of office.
“They are just hounding down the governor of the Central Bank. It is a concerted effort to hound him out,” Persad-Bissessar said.
The former prime minister said Rambarran’s statement on the foreign exchange issue was made after the Government had called on him to give an account “with respect to who is getting the foreign exchange and so on. He has done it (and now) they are trying to hound him out because of that but he was within the law in my view.”
She said she was awaiting the disclosure of the Government's legal advice on the matter.
But Persad-Bissessar insisted: “It was a whole concerted effort to hound the governor out of office.”
Acting COP leader Anirudh Mahabir, meanwhile, described the increasing criticism of Rambarran’s decision to reveal that T&T was in a recession and the country’s highest foreign exchange purchasers as an act of open warfare.
In a statement yesterday, Mahabir said what was initially “a skirmish in the form of volleys of propaganda by certain big business interests and their PNM spokespersons has now broken out into open warfare against the Central Bank governor, painting him as a possible criminal.”
He said over the past two years elements of business, the PNM, talk show hosts, media operatives and others have made loud claims that the change in the foreign exchange regime implemented by Rambarran had caused a shortage in foreign exchange.
“The banks have put measures in place for the small purchasers of foreign currency that make it almost impossible for the small consumer or foreign currency account holder to access foreign currency, even that held by them in the same banks.
“Their aim was to blame the governor, who was presented as a lackey of the last administration, for a ‘crisis’ of foreign exchange,” he added.
“The business associations are now suggesting that the Central Bank governor has committed a crime by naming those businesses which he did (and) the Finance Minister has taken pleasure in suggesting that the governor’s presentation of information has committed a “criminal offence.”