By Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Thursday 17th August 2023) – “We cannot afford for the bank to fail. We cannot afford for Social Security to lose maybe one tenth of its money through one loan. That cannot happen, and therefore, we are determined to do everything in our power to continue to stabilize Development Bank and to make sure it services its loan it has with Social Security so people can have money when Social Security is called upon according to what their benefits should be.
This is a very, very serious matter…” So said Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew Minister, Minister of Finance and Social Security while making an appearance on Freedom FM’s (106.5) live broadcast ‘Issues’ programme as he spoke about his government addressing the matter of Development Bank owing Social Security $119, 921, 959.79 caused under the previous administration. “…almost $120 million owed to the Social Security.
None of this money was borrowed under the new administration. This is what we met.” According to the Finance Minister: “The bad part is, the last time any money was paid to Social Security under the former administration was January 2022 and the amount paid was a meager $200,000.
So, between January and August, not one cent was paid to Social Security.” Dr. Drew highlighted that under the past government, the loan payments were always low. “Social security was abused but worse than that, the amount that Social Security is supposed to be paid is $697, 000 per month but they were paying $200,000 per month; less than one third to service the debt and in addition to that, the last time anything was paid was January 2022.
This money is serious money that belongs to the people so when I tell people we had to act to save Social Security, this is what I was talking.” He highlighted that after his government took office in August 2022, payments began in October that year. The Finance Minister also gave the reasoning as to why such serious details about the bank’s situation were not told to the country when he first spoke about it.
“Now since we have taken office, so we started to pay every month from September. So, we came in August and started to pay right away from October and we started to pay the $200,000. Again, Development Bank had no money. The bank was on the verge of collapse but I couldn’t say that to the country because I didn’t want people to lose confidence…. and basically sink the bank.
That would have been the worst scenario. I had to put the country’s interest above immediate political interest or any other interests. The immediate interest was let us save Development Bank and so we started to make moves…” Additionally, he informed that from June 2023, his government increased to 250,000 per month “and we have just written to social security to say will start to increase payment to 300,000 per month.” Speaking about the critical importance of Social Security, he commented: âœRemember the Social Security’s money belongs to the people.
This is where the people save for retirement. This is governed by legislation.” “I was not going to come out with the information before unless we had done proper analysis because as I said, I am not on a witch hunt but people deserve to know the truth,” he has said.
PM Drew emphasized why focus was placed on stabilizing the situation before revealing ceratin information. “I did not want people to lose confidence in the bank. I wanted – NEWS – us to be able to stabilize the broadcast ‘Issues’ programme on Thursday 17th August situation before we spoke more 2023 (Spokesman Screenshot: Facebook/Freedomskn) because if there is total loss in confidence with the bank, the bank can fail, and if the bank fails, it would affect us tremendously and I as the leader would have deemed that.
But after having worked so hard with a competent team, a team that is in the bank that is working hard, we are not at the point where we can reveal information because before I do that I can say to the people that the bank is under good leadership, and the bank has been stabilized.” “I don’t want people to ever doubt that things are stable; not perfect but every stable at this particular point,” the Finance Minister stated. Photo: Prime Minister Dr.
Terrance Drew Minister, Minister of Finance and Social Security while making an appearance on Freedom FM’s (106.5) live
