(Trinidad Express) Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley said yesterday Air Jamaica was bleeding Trinidad and Tobago “like a chop neck”.
“Right now nobody knows what the Minister of Finance is doing by bankrolling CAL. All he is doing is giving them permission to go and borrow money short term. As of now we don’t know how much money they have borrowed and they writing off TT$200 million and the CAL board is having a generally good time as you see in the behaviour of (vice chairman) Mohan Jaikaran,” Rowley said.
He said the airline was now “absolutely bankrupt”.
Rowley who recalled that he had always opposed the Air Jamaica/Caribbean Airlines merger, said as a backbencher in the last PNM administration, he took strong objection to that Government buying into Air Jamaica and had warned that it could come to no good.
He was responding to a Sunday Express exclusive story which disclosed that CAL was facing a potential TT$200 million write-off, after having already been given a TT$100 million write-off.
He said it was after serious investigation and study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that that international body had advised Jamaica to get rid of its airline.
“Jamaica needs Air Jamaica more than we do, and if the IMF could have told Jamaica to get rid of that expense, what in God’s name was Trinidad and Tobago Government doing taking up that airline?” he asked.
Rowley said despite his persistent objections, this People’s Partnership Government came into office and proceeded to buy Air Jamaica.
Rowley said when he raised issues about what was happening in CAL in the last no-confidence motion last year, not a single Government spokesperson responded to anything he said about CAL.
“Look at what is happening in CAL today. Imagine you are running a jet airline with multi aircraft going to international areas and you take the cash flow, the working capital for the country, and go and buy jet prop aircraft to go and fly to Tobago, Grenada and Barbados. You have to be crazy,” he said. He said nobody buys planes today as everyone is into lease arrangements.
Noting that the last chairman, Arthur Lok Jack, had stated that the previous board had left over TT$100 million in CAL’s account, Rowley said: “Today they are borrowing TT$40 million by the piece. TT$40 and TT$50 million, paying high interest rates for short-term borrowing to keep the airline afloat, while the Minister of Finance is absolutely silent.”
He also noted that the situation with CAL was now compounded by the legal issue because St Vincent is prepared to push the matter of Trinidad and Tobago being in breach of the Caricom treaty by subsidising CAL and not subsidising anybody else (ie LIAT) with whom CAL is competing in the region.
He said if this matter goes to the Caribbean Court of Justice, this country would not have a leg to stand on “because we are subsidising an airline which is competing with other airlines in the region who are not part of the subsidy”.
He said the law (revised Treaty of Chaguaramas) requires that the country either stops the subsidy or makes it available to the other regional airline.
