By CARIBUPDATE NEWS

ST GEORGE’S, GRENADA: The government’s inability to pay its wage bill had caught the entire cabinet, including Prime Minister Tillman Thomas by surprise, a CARIBUPDATE investigation has revealed.

Multiple sources have indicated that there were no warnings or cabinet briefings up until Thursday – the day when the payments were to have been made – of the pending crisis by Minister of Finance Nazim Burke.

Even government ministers were surprised to find that their monthly payments and allowances were not in the bank.

However, there was no comment from Ministry of Finance officials about that account, since they have repeatedly turned down requests for interviews.

About six weeks ago, Ministry of Finance officials had made a special presentation to the cabinet about the fiscal crisis, and suggestions were put forward about how to deal with it.

“There was a general awareness that things were tight, but there was no further update that there would have been a default at the end of the month,’’ a minister tells CARIBUPDATE as background to our investigations.

Over the last two days Finance Minister Nazim Burke has turned down repeated reporters’ request for an interview on the growing fiscal crisis in Grenada.

During a ruling party event Sunday in the suburb of Marian, he clashed with a reporter who sought him out, claiming she was “trying to impose yourself on people.’’

The reporter, a freelance contributor to two local television stations, was accosted for a previous encounter with Minister Burke in which she sought an interview, and subsequently posted the exchange on facebook.

“Your intention is to embarrass me, and you are approaching this with a bias,’’ he complained in the exchange on Sunday, video of which has been shared with other reporters.

“You will never get an interview with me,’’ he declared in the video clip.

The Prime Minister was accommodating to the reporter and Minister of Information Glen Noel also showed a lot of understanding in the exchange, whose audio was caught on camera.

But Burke had a heated exchange with the reporter in declaring the meeting on Sunday was “a private event’’ to which she was not invited.

One unidentified person was overheard asking if he should destroy the reporter’s camera.

There is no clear indication as to the Prime Minister’s reaction to the growing fiscal crisis, but in the past he has consistently stood behind Minister Burke, once saying his talent and ability was the envy of cabinet ministers.

CARIBUPDATE NEWS had reported five months ago, quoting a high level Ministry of Finance source as saying that the country’s fiscal situation was worse that it is made out to be.

“People are talking about the politics and the division in the party, but it is the economy and the fiscal situation that will bring down this government in the end, not the infighting in the party,’’ the official, who has been sitting on the planning meetings, told CARIBUPDATE at the time.

CARIBUPDATE NEWS has seen documents to suggest that the unpaid claims and the financing deficit gap are both much higher than have been reported by the Minister of Finance to the country’s parliament.

The Ministry of Finance is hoping that all public servants will be paid by Wednesday.

The government is considering borrowing money from the National Insurance Scheme to meet this month’s wage bill.

The government has lately sought outside assistance to help with the growing financial crisis, and there was hope that some money will come from recent contacts with Qatar.

“That has gone cold, and I don’t think anything will happen from that source anytime soon,’’ a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said on background on Sunday.

Only in his recent address, Prime Minister Thomas indicated he was hopeful of some assistance to the government from Qatar.

There appears to be growing tensions between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs official about latter’s role in trying to negotiate for foreign assistance.

Since the resignation of Karl Hood, the Prime Minister has taken on the role as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

For the first two and a half years of the government, the Thomas administration had taken an activist foreign policy approach – expanding ties with China, Venezuela and Morocco.

But in recent months relations with those countries appear to have cooled. Comments by government officials on both Chinese and Venezuelan relations have irked the diplomats of the two countries.

Two years ago, Chinese diplomatic sources said there was anger in Beijing when Prime Minister Thomas cancelled a high level official visit at the last minute, claiming to be unwell – even though during that same week he appeared at public functions around Grenada.

Thomas however subsequently made a downgraded visit to Beijing where he secured six million US dollars in assistance.

During that same period, Antigua’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer made a much higher level visit, meeting with that country’s Premier and securing a 100 million US dollar assistance package to help expand that country’s airport.

Of Eastern Caribbean countries, Grenada has received the least assistance from Venezuela in the last two years, and in the latest development that country’s Ambassador in St George’s is now being sent to Antigua, with no immediate plans for a replacement.

Grenada has been without an ambassador in Caracas for more than a year.