Diego Martin Chairman: Imbert as Finance Minister is Madness

CHAIRMAN of the Diego Martin Regional Corporation Susan Hong says many people thought the appointment of Colm Imbert as Minister of Finance was madness.

While introducing Imbert to speak at a People’s National Movement (PNM) meeting in Diego Martin on Saturday night, Hong said, “My oth­er speak­er is a gen­tle­man who, when the PNM came back in pow­er, that many peo­ple said that Dr Row­ley had to be a mad man to put this as our Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

She asked, “What this man knows about fi­nances and not on­ly that, what kind of bud­get that man could bring for Trinidad and To­ba­go?”

Hong added, “But time…you know the old-time peo­ple say time will tell and time has cer­tain­ly told, so this last bud­get was the best bud­get in Trinidad and To­ba­go ever.”

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Imbert agreed with Hong.

He told the crowd, “When I came in­to Gov­ern­ment Dr Row­ley… Miss Hong, I too thought he was crazy. When Dr Row­ley of­fered me the post of Fi­nance I said ‘what?’

“But we are in this thing to do what we have to do so I em­braced the po­si­tion and I think I’ve done all right.”

Im­bert said the PNM was able to bring Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL) in­to a po­si­tion of mak­ing a prof­it following the People’s Partnership Government when the national carrier had $3 bil­lion in loss­es.

He said CAL was able to make a prof­it be­fore tax of $121 mil­lion for the nine months of 2019.

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Imbert said, “No longer do we have to prop up Caribbean Air­lines, no longer do we have to bail them out.”

He listed a number of challenges faced by the PNM in office including the Point Fortin High­way, Petrotrin and CLICO.

He called on sup­port­ers to give the PNM more than 75 percent of the votes in the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion in the December 2 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion.