Gail Alexan­der

Some new and for­eign-used car buy­ers will pay more from next month, an elec­tron­ic health card is be­ing in­tro­duced and home­own­ers will be the last to re­sume pay­ing land and build­ing tax in a phased-in regime be­tween 2014 and 2017.And while State-owned Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) has lost its fu­el sub­sidy, CAL's board says tick­et prices won't be af­fect­ed.Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai out­lined those and oth­er mea­sures in the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day in a $61.3 bil­lion bud­get, the biggest to date, with a $3 bil­lion in­crease over the 2013 bud­get.Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty re­ceived an in­creased amount – $6.4 bil­lion, the sec­ond high­est al­lo­ca­tion to a min­istry – but it was Ed­u­ca­tion which re­ceived the high­est sum, $9.8 bil­lion.Though Howai pre­sent­ed a big­ger bud­get than last year, the 2014 deficit is $6.3 bil­lion or 3.6 per cent of GDP, low­er than the 2013 deficit of 4.6 per cent, he said.Howai said that was achieved by high­er than es­ti­mat­ed rev­enues from the en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy sec­tors and low­er than ex­pect­ed ex­pen­di­ture and was the start of Gov­ern­ment's move to achieve bal­anced bud­gets by 2016.

He added: "Build­ing on the suc­cess­es of this past year and herald­ing a new era of growth, this year's bud­get theme is 'Sus­tain­ing Growth, Se­cur­ing Pros­per­i­ty', as we recog­nise these suc­cess­es and fo­cus on those mea­sures not yet ful­ly re­alised."This bud­get con­tin­ues on the path of re­duc­ing the fis­cal deficit while still fund­ing ad­e­quate­ly, eco­nom­ic and so­cial pro­grammes and in­vest­ments in in­fra­struc­ture."On ve­hi­cles, Howai in­creased cus­toms du­ty by 25 per cent on new and for­eign used cars over 2,499 cc, ex­clud­ing T-ve­hi­cles and ve­hi­cles reg­is­tered as maxi taxis, from Oc­to­ber 1.Howai said the land and build­ing tax–sus­pend­ed when the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) took of­fice in 2010–would re­sume in three phas­es from next year. This will re­quire prop­er­ty rolls be­ing brought up to date.He said in phase one, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, Gov­ern­ment would be­gin val­u­a­tions of all in­dus­tri­al land, in­clud­ing plant and ma­chin­ery, to im­ple­ment the tax by Ju­ly 1, 2014.

Phase Two in­volved im­po­si­tion of a tax on com­mer­cial prop­er­ties. Phase Three would re­sume the tax on agri­cul­tur­al lands and res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties, with a de­ductible al­lowance to pro­vide re­lief to cer­tain agri­cul­tur­al land-own­ers and low-in­come home­own­ers, he added.In or­der to make the CDAP sys­tem more ef­fi­cient and pre­vent abuse, Howai said, Gov­ern­ment would start a card sys­tem this year.He added: "The health card will be elec­tron­ic and will serve as a means to ac­cess health care ser­vices. It will en­sure we have a reg­is­ter of all pa­tients ac­cess­ing health ser­vices and will en­hance our abil­i­ty to mon­i­tor and im­prove health ser­vices to cit­i­zens."Howai said the in­for­ma­tion cap­tured by the sys­tem al­so would pro­vide the ba­sis for a na­tion­al health in­sur­ance sys­tem.He al­so said he would re­move CAL's fu­el sub­sidy from next month. The sub­sidy has been a bone of con­tention with re­gion­al states which deemed it an un­fair ad­van­tage for CAL.

Yes­ter­day, Howai said CAL's new board had com­plet­ed the first phase of a re­vised busi­ness plan for fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty.He added: "To this end, ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 1, 2013, I pro­pose to dis­con­tin­ue the fu­el sub­sidy which the air­line cur­rent­ly en­joys. The sub­sidy for the To­ba­go air­bridge will re­main. I have been as­sured by CAL's board the re­moval of the fu­el sub­sidy will not im­pact the tick­et-pric­ing pol­i­cy."Howai al­so an­nounced a mo­tor ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dent fund from Jan­u­ary 1 to com­pen­sate vic­tims in­jured in ac­ci­dents in­volv­ing cars dri­ven by unin­sured dri­vers.Say­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty re­ceived more this year, Howai said there were jobs for those who wan ed an hon­est day's work for an hon­est day's pay and the re­cent crime up­surge was cre­at­ed by those who "made a de­lib­er­ate life de­ci­sion to re­ject so­ci­ety's of­fer­ings and in­stead fall in­to a life of crime. Gov­ern­ment will, how­ev­er, re­spond firm­ly," he warned.He ques­tioned why a coun­try of T&T's small size and pop­u­la­tion should spend on an av­er­age $5 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty."T&T isn't at war with an­oth­er state," he not­ed. "Gone are the days when our youths can use the ex­cuse that the sys­tem is work­ing against them. [From those] to whom much is giv­en, much is ex­pect­ed," he said.

He de­tailed Gov­ern­ment's an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing in­creased polic­ing, joint army-po­lice pa­trols, rein­tro­duc­tion of high­way pa­trols, in­creased po­lice/SRP com­ple­ments, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, un­manned aer­i­al sur­veil­lance and im­proved law.By Au­gust, he said, 873 CCTV cam­eras had been in­stalled in east Port-of-Spain and oth­er ar­eas and To­ba­go.Howai said Gov­ern­ment was al­so pro­ceed­ing with a food se­cu­ri­ty plan with Guyana for cul­ti­va­tion of 10,000 acres in Berbice for agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and a sub­se­quent 90,000 acres. T&T pri­vate-sec­tor in­vest­ment will be in­vit­ed.

The Guyanese Gov­ern­ment would be asked to al­low T&T in­vestors to ac­cess in­cen­tives avail­able to Guyanese farm­ers and to be al­lowed to repa­tri­ate prof­its, Howai added.Howai de­tailed T&T's eco­nom­ic per­for­mance, which he laud­ed, adding T&T had per­formed sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter than most Caribbean coun­tries and many de­vel­oped states.He said, how­ev­er, that some is­sues re­mained, in­clud­ing build­ing T&T's com­pet­i­tive­ness, eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and bal­anc­ing of fis­cal ac­counts.Howai's sec­ond bud­get was pegged on an oil price of US$80 a bar­rel.His two-hour pre­sen­ta­tion was in­ter­rupt­ed reg­u­lar­ly dur­ing the lat­ter part by "pi­cong" from the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), so much so the Speak­er cau­tioned MPs, sin­gling out Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald for spe­cial warn­ing.De­bate con­tin­ues at 10 am on Fri­day with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley's re­ply.

2014 bud­get: Where the $$ is go­ing

Ex­pen­di­ture: $61.3 bil­lion.

To­tal rev­enue: $55 bil­lion.

Cap­i­tal pro­gramme: $8 bil­lion, the largest in his­to­ry.

Deficit: $6.3 bil­lion.

Oil rev­enue: $23.3 bil­lion.

Non-oil rev­enue: $32.6 bil­lion.

Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund: (US)$5 bil­lion.

Ed­u­ca­tion: $9.8 bil­lion.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty: 6.4 bil­lion.

Health: $5.0 bil­lion.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment: $2.4 bil­lion.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment: $3.5 bil­lion.

Works: $2.4 bil­lion.

Hous­ing: $2.7 bil­lion.

Trans­port: $2.3 bil­lion.

Agri­cul­ture: $1.3 bil­lion.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly: $3.4 bil­lion.

PP'S FOURTH BUD­GET

OTH­ER NEW ITEMS

�2 Na­tion­al On­col­o­gy Cen­tre: Con­struc­tion be­gins this month to be com­plet­ed Jan­u­ary 2016, cost­ing $891 mil­lion.

�2 Com­ple­tion/out­fit­ting of the Gov­ern­ment cam­pus.

�2 From No­vem­ber 1, on­ly those pri­vate health care in­sti­tu­tions which meet best prac­tice stan­dards will pro­vide dial­y­sis at gov­ern­ment ex­pense.

�2 New share­hold­ers' agree­ment for CL Fi­nan­cial group, sale of as­sets of CLF group.

�2 Ex­ten­sion of Port-of-Spain-Ch­aguara­mas wa­ter taxi ser­vice to three round trips. Con­sid­er­a­tion of a Ch­agua­nas-Port-of-Spain route.

�2 In­creased penal­ties for il­le­gal bunker­ing, quar­ry­ing.

�2 Leg­is­la­tion from next year reg­u­lat­ing casi­nos, in­clud­ing a reg­u­la­to­ry com­mis­sion.

�2 Lit­ter­ing fines in­creased to $4,000 and up to $8,000 for cor­po­rate bod­ies.

�2 Com­pas­sion­ate re­lief win­dow to as­sist ur­gent, needy HCU cas­es.

�2 Pedes­tri­an walkover from Movi­eTowne to Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um; Ch­agua­nas over­pass.

�2 VM­COTT, Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vices Ltd, NFM, Ltd Pt Lisas De­vel­op­ment cor­po­ra­tion for in­vestors.

�2 Ac­cel­er­a­tion of two con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is­sues: term lim­its for prime min­is­ters and the right to re­call leg­is­la­tors.

�2 Pro­cure­ment Bill be­ing laid in Par­lia­ment im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the bud­get; cam­paign fi­nance re­form pro­pos­al for pub­lic com­ment by year-end.

�2 Con­stituen­cy De­vel­op­ment Fund back on the ta­ble via leg­is­la­tion with in­de­pen­dent watch­dog and al­lo­ca­tions planned once law is passed.

�2 New law next year to in­clude the self-em­ployed in NIS sys­tem.

�2 First pub­lic pri­vate-pub­lic part­ner­ship un­der IDB in­volv­ing ed­u­ca­tion and health cen­tres.

�2 Agree­ment with Chi­na Har­bour En­gi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny for dry dock­ing fa­cil­i­ties.

�2 Phys­i­cal­ly dis­abled cen­ters at Ch­agua­nas, Gas­par­il­lo.