Rowley gets it wrong again
Dear Editor:
I was simply amazed while recently reading a story in the newspapers. Leader of the Opposition, Keith Rowley, was once again peddling some form of misinformation. Here he was saying the the current Governor of the Central Bank, created four new foreign exchange dealers and this resulted in the current distribution problems. I wanted to verify this for myself so I went to the Central Bank’s website. What I found was simply baffling. These are the twelve authorized foreign exchange dealers and their dates of authorization:
(1) AIC Finance Limited – 29 April 2005
(2) ANSA Merchant Bank Limited – 08 April 2005
(3) Bank of Baroda (Trinidad and Tobago) Limited – 03 October 2007
(4) Citibank (Trinidad) Limited – 31 March 1983
(5) CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank Limited – 28 May 2007
(6) Development Finance Limited – 11 July 1994
(7) First Citizens Bank Limited- 3 August 1993
(8) General Finance Corporation Limited – 10 July 2003
(9) Intercommercial Bank Limited – 22 May 1998
(10) RBC Royal Bank (Trinidad and Tobago) Limited – 01 February 1972
(11) Republic Bank Limited – 22 January 1981
(12) Scotiabank (Trinidad and Tobago) Limited – 01 February 1972
Notice that each of these dealers have been around for some time now, in fact the latest authorized dealer was authorized way back in 2007. This Governor was appointed in 2012. He couldn’t have created this system. This was easily verified through a simple web search. Couldn’t have a man who wants to be the Prime Minister easily verify his facts? Another fact, the foreign exchange market ended in net surplus position last year. Where is the shortage now?
Kenneth Lee-Pow
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