The Governor of the Central Bank in releasing the names and amounts of foreign exchange purchased by certain companies raises more questions than answers. For me the Governor's statement provided no context.
For example how do we know that the companies he listed were merely buying their usual amount of foreign exchange as in prior years when we had no foreign exchange shortages in the system? However the big elephant in the room is the fact that the Governor's statement only accounted for about 4.5 billion US dollars. According to the Governor himself that only accounts for about one third of the foreign currency sold by the Central Bank. Add that to the fact that commercial banks have purchased over 15.5 billion US dollars from their customers and we have a huge gap between the figures released by the Governor and the inflows of US dollars into the system.
Therefore for me the Governor's statement told me absolutely nothing. I am still totally at a loss to explain where the foreign currency is going, and the public speculation that it may be going to fund nefarious activities will continue.
Vikram Persad
Chaguanas
