The Private Sector Commission (PSC) took issue with a recent statement from Finance Minister Winston Jordan, implicating unnamed members in an “underground economy”. But the Minister has no inclination to provide the requested evidence of this.
When asked if he would be acceding to the request, Jordan on Friday indicated that he saw no reason for them to ask him for this evidence. He did qualify his earlier statement, noting that he never intended it to mean everyone in the Private Sector.
Finance Minister Winston Jordan
“I don’t see any reason why they’re asking me for empirical evidence. I don’t know whether it’s a ploy. I’ve made my contention, they’ve made theirs. I didn’t say every Private Sector person, business or wealth was derived from… I said, if you go back and check my speech, you’ll see what I said.”
Recently, in a response to an editorial done by one of the leading dailies that waded into Minister Jordan’s handling of the financial sector, Jordan had retorted, inter alia, “you must have forgotten, conveniently, the deformed and broken economy that our Government inherited in 2015. Lest we forget, too, that economy thrived on rampant drug trafficking, money laundering, and a banking sector in which a few institutions recklessly lent funds for private white elephant projects.”
The PSC subsequently said it had taken note of the recent statement by Jordan on the impact of the proceeds of drugs on the economy and in an effort to understand the “empirical evidence” relied upon by the Minister, the Commission said it has sought to obtain a briefing by him and, to this end, has dispatched a letter to the Minister.
In the letter that was made public to the media, the PSC said it would be “grateful to be briefed by you on the assertions made that the economy pre May 2015 was heavily based on proceeds of the drug trade and that the current economy post May 2015 is no longer affected by such proceeds.”
Moreover, the Commission said “as businesses it is important for us to understand the underlying structure of the economy and the various elements that contribute or inhibit its growth.”
Outlining that it was awaiting a response, the PSC in its letter to the subject Minister posited that “we look forward to such a brief so that we could better understand the empirical evidence supporting your assertions.”
Jordan, since his Government came to power in 2015, has made several accusations that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Administration before him was able to reflect growth in the economy because it proliferated the trade of drugs.
This contention has never been supported by evidence from the Minister and the few cases put together by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) were not only aimed at former Government officials rather than money launderers, they fell through for lack of evidence.
In an interview in 2016, the Finance Minister also attributed the reduction in consumer spending to a decrease in illegal activities, including narco-trafficking, which he said had created a parallel economy.
