Click to view full size

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has dis­missed claims made by for­mer CN­MG CEO Ken Ali that the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion en­gaged in se­cret and pos­si­bly im­prop­er bor­row­ing in the lead-up to the last gen­er­al elec­tion.

In a state­ment re­leased on Sat­ur­day, Young re­spond­ed to a se­ries of Face­book posts by Ali, who claimed that five loans to­talling $1.5 bil­lion were tak­en be­tween March 18 and April 15, dur­ing a pe­ri­od when Par­lia­ment was dis­solved and Young was serv­ing as prime min­is­ter.

Ali’s post al­leged that the loans were re­port­ed­ly signed by short-term fi­nance min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul, who had not yet been sworn in as a sen­a­tor. He said they were nei­ther dis­closed to the pub­lic nor ac­count­ed for dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign. The loans, which were se­cured from lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al lenders, al­leged­ly in­clud­ed fund­ing for agen­cies such as the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty.