While he did not elaborate on what exactly he meant by this saying, the Minister told Amandala that the problems facing us today are not because the system has failed, but because people have failed to comply with the system.

Non-compliance with the Finance and Audit Act, Government?s Financial Orders, and even the rules of the legislative arm of the Government?the House of Representatives as an example?have led us on what Coye described as an ?unsustainable? path. He went short of pinpointing any culprits, however.

While he told us that the point of un-sustainability could be reached only five months from now ? by February?all indications are that we have been on that path for at least the past two years, when Government took out its first major bond of US$125 million in 2002.

The claim from the Government then was that it was doing ?refinancing.? The Prime Minister, then the Minister of Finance, had told Amandala when we interviewed him that the purpose was to give the country ?more elbow room?more breathing space? in meeting its debt payments. Another term Coye used today for the refinancing strategy was ?re-profiling.?

Minister Coye mentioned to us today that Government is engaging in talks with the Royal Merchant Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (RBTT) and the International Bank of Miami (IBOM).

Furthermore, he indicated to us that Cabinet had approved the US$100 million bond with RBTT, under the specific terms of 9.95% interest for 10 years.

?Cabinet has given the approval? I know we gave the go ahead for them to pursue it under the terms that that they [RBTT] offered,? Coye told us.

Since Coye and the other six Cabinet Ministers who had resigned from Cabinet on August 16 (on the charge that the Prime Minister needed to institute urgent measures to correct the country?s financial position), have been returned to Cabinet (August 18), there have been four Cabinet meetings, and none of the public reports that have come from Cabinet since have said anything about Cabinet?s approving the US$100 million bond through RBTT on the terms specified. We only learned about it from a source that leaked a document to the media?a fact that some think discredits Government?s pledge of openness, transparency and accountability in public finances.

Additionally, the newly constituted Public Finance Committee, chaired by the Prime Minister?the man who has been the Minister of Finance from Aug. 1998 to Mar. 2003, and from Aug. 2004 to present?had on Monday, September 13, received reports from a technical team, commissioned by the Cabinet to do an up-to-date review on the state of public finances.

That report, we have been told, is not to be made public. Coye said that the reports are ?preliminary,? and have to be reconciled with the figures from the Central Bank, and he had no details to give us.

When asked to paint a picture of what the current state of our financial affairs is, however, he said that, ?The position is leading us into a position that we certainly can?t sustain? we cannot sustain it!?

When we asked him to clarify what he meant, Coye told us that within the next five months, we could find ourselves in a position where we might have to cut back on our recurrent expenditures or default on public debt.

He said that two short-term loans from the IBOM totaling US$36 million are due in just four to five months, one on December and another in January. Those loans, he claimed, were taken under the presumption that the country would be able to float the now aborted US$225 million bond.

With that abandoned, however, the Government has been pursuing debt ?re-profiling? with its creditors, in the hopes that it could stretch out the debt payments.

Coye characterized this as ?not proper management; not sound?[since] we should not have been incurring these debts, except if it was done in the context of fiscal sustainability.?

Coye has been a member of Cabinet?the chief policy-making arm of Government?for the entire term of the Musa administration, since 1998, and has on occasions acted as Minister of Finance.