A team led by Financial Secretary Hugh McSweaney along with Development Finance Corporation CEO Troy Gabb and Social Security General Manager Narda Garcia had a meeting with the business community and the unions at the Central Bank this morning. Here was their reaction after the meeting.
Jules Vasquez,
Were you satisfied?
George Frazer, NTUCB
“Well I had my own feelings. They are saying that revenues are still on stream and they predict that from all indicators that the economy should be improving probably another 4% or more.”
Q: When this scandal broke you came out like a lion highly condemning what appeared to be gross mismanagement if not corruption in the highest levels of government. Now you come to today and you sound more like a pussycat like you have had a radical change of heart. Could explain what has caused this apparent change of heart on your part?
George Frazer,
“No perception is one thing. The bottomline is that I personally will not be hasty in making any final judgement. The figures and what we are hearing out there leaves a lot of concerns. We are studying the documents as the joint (press) release indicates and we want to try and arrive at the facts and not just speculation. We know the air out there is highly charged and we don’t want to be brought into any political game. We represent our people and we want the facts and we have been getting information which we hope are the true figures. We are to receive some more until we get the final thing and consult with our financial experts and then we will look at the true picture. But we are concerned because even information that has come out indicates, the Ministers themselves have indicated too, that all is not well in the kingdom so it is not being a pussycat; I never was and never will. This pussycat has claws.”
Arturo Vasquez, President Chamber of Commerce
“There are some concerns that we still have after looking at the presentation. As it is the presentation had difficulty progressing because as it was progressing, in the light of a good picture, there were so many questions there by us, the BBB, and the Union as to some of the issues that are really concerning the public right now.”
Jules Vasquez,
So the rosy picture painted by Mr. McSweaney and Sydney Campbell you all are saying, from the Chamber perspective, is not as rosy in real life or is not as convincing in real life?
Arturo Vasquez,
“Yeah I would say that, it is not as convincing as it is and it does not really cover some of the issues that we are questioning right now. We went there mainly to see a presentation, that's what they gave to us, but we were really there for the purpose of asking some specific questions which we did get into some specific questions mainly on the part of the business community mainly to get a guarantee that there will not be additional taxes to get us out of where we are right now.”
“Yes the way forward is a good thing to say and really what the Financial Secretary was saying is that we are here to show you the way forward as to how we plan this out. But that is the way forward, we need to know how did we get here and the way out for them really is to say the budget is going according to plan but I really don’t think that is the case. For the budget to continue the way it is we have an assumption that they may be looking at increased taxes and we have to lookout for the business community because we really can’t take anymore of that. So for us we are really looking out for our membership, for the business community, and of course we will steer very very clear from all this political issue that is happening as we speak right now.”
The media was given a similar but shortened presentation and we'll have a report on that tomorrow.