PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley Tuesday warned Trinidad and Tobago nationals that the quality of life they now enjoy is in great danger if they don’t “behave properly” given the economic challenges facing the oil-rich twin island republic.

Central Bank Governor Jwala Rambarran last week said that the country is “officially” in a recession and Rowley, speaking at the launch of the report of the Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) on the just concluded “Women’s Conservations Caravan: Making Our Voice Count at the Rotunda” said Trinidadians needed to ask themselves, “what can we afford under the current circumstances?

“What are the circumstances? What kind of behaviour is required of us at this time to ensure that we can continue to at least preserve the quality of life that we enjoy now, because that quality of life is in grave danger if we don’t behave properly”.

Rowley said that his three-month-old administration “intends to be brutally honest with the people of Trinidad and Tobago to make sure we do what is going to save us from what is pending”.

Last weekend, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said the government was seeking to defer payment of billions of dollars (One TT dollar =US$0.16 cents) in arrears to public servants after accusing the former People’s Partnership Government of going on a spending spree prior to the September 7 general election.

Imbert told Parliament that as a result of a serious cash flow problem, the new administration is “currently reconciling all arrears of salaries, that is back pay owed to our public sector employees and to our protective services.

“The arrears to the various arms of the protective services that are payable alone exceed two billion, in fact it is TT$2.6 billion is what is owed… to the army, the police, etc, while arrears owed to the health sector workers (is) TT$1.7 billion as a result of collective negotiations that were settled just before the election.”

Imbert told legislators that these are just two examples of “what we have been saddled with in 2016.

“Unfortunately within the constraints of the overdrawn exchequer account and the overdraft limit at the Central Bank there is simply insufficient cash available at this time to pay these arrears of salaries and back pay”.

He said the government’s focus now is to ensure that salaries and wages and essential goods and services are covered “while we make the necessary arrangements to go to the commercial banking sector to raise the necessary funds to get the government’s overdraft levels down to a point where we can settle the outstanding arrears”.

Imbert said that the government also intends to raise special bond issues to settle the arrears and he has since met with the commercial banks “to initiate this process”.

Rowley told the meeting here that earlier today he came across a “very disturbing piece of news” with the United States legislators “are appearing to agree to lift the embargo on the United States to allow it to become an exporter of hydro carbons.

“Now if that happens, the market is going to change in a fundamental way. The United States had self imposed a condition where it will not export hydro carbons, it will always remain a buyer as against a seller.”

He said Trinidad and Tobago has always been a seller and if Washington decides to join the market as a seller it would have consequences for Port of Spain.