Michelle Loubon

For­mer Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter, Colm Im­bert says he's "sur­prised," the Works Min­istry will get the biggest slice of the 2010/11 bud­get. For the 2009/10 fis­cal year, how­ev­er, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty got the high­est al­lo­ca­tion. The bud­get was $45.7 bil­lion but the rev­enue was $40.7 bil­lion. "If the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port were to re­ceive the high­est al­lo­ca­tion, it would mean a move from $1.8 bil­lion to be­yond the $4.1 bil­lion Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty got. It would mean you would have to re­duce Ed­u­ca­tion, Health and So­cial Ser­vices." Im­bert al­so strong­ly be­lieves the 2011 rev­enue will not ex­ceed the 2010 rev­enue es­ti­mates pre­sent­ed by for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Karen Tesheira dur­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion of the bud­get in Sep­tem­ber last year.

He said this was based on the fact that oil and gas prices had not soared in the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. "With gas prices where they are the rev­enue out­look is not ex­pect­ed to be much more than the pre­vi­ous rev­enue. There has not been much growth in the econ­o­my and nat­ur­al gas prices are not very good at this time." Im­bert al­so said for every US $1 drop in the price of nat­ur­al gas, the Gov­ern­ment los­es $4 bil­lion dol­lars in rev­enue. "Oil prices var­ied be­tween US $70 to US $75 per bar­rel for 2010 and they are not ex­pect­ed to change sig­nif­i­cant­ly in 2011. With re­spect to nat­ur­al gas prices, US $3.50 and US $5.50. They are cur­rent­ly at US$3.65 and they var­ied from as low of US $4 up to US $5 in the year 2010. But they are now at US $ 3.65.

The out­look for 2011 is not much dif­fer­ent for nat­ur­al gas prices. I ex­pect them to av­er­age around US $4," added Im­bert. Ze­ro­ing in on the lo­cal sit­u­a­tion, Im­bert said there has not been much eco­nom­ic growth. "Peo­ple are not hir­ing and busi­ness­es are not ex­pand­ing. Cor­po­ra­tion tax rev­enues, VAT and in­come tax will be down or re­main the same," said Im­bert.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty got high­est al­lo­ca­tion in 2009

Re­fer­ring to fig­ures drawn from the Ac­tu­al es­ti­mates and Ex­pen­di­tures, Im­bert said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty got the high­est al­lo­ca­tion in the 2009/10 bud­get read by for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Karen Tesheira in Sep­tem­ber 2009. "Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty got the high­est al­lo­ca­tion. That was fol­lowed by Health, Ed­u­ca­tion and Pub­lic Util­i­ties. Works got about the sev­enth high­est al­lo­ca­tion," said Im­bert. For­mer Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Mar­i­ano Browne al­so said tra­di­tion­al­ly Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Health, Ed­u­ca­tion and Fi­nance would re­ceive the largest al­lo­ca­tions. "Tra­di­tion­al­ly, those are the min­istries that get the high­est al­lo­ca­tions," he said.

2009/10 bud­get

The bud­get was set at $45.6 bil­lion

Re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture–$43 bil­lion

Cap­i­tal De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme–$2.6 bil­lion

Deficit be­tween $5 bil­lion (3 per cent of GDP)

2009/10 al­lo­ca­tion

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty–$4.1 bil­lion

Health–$3.3 bil­lion

Ed­u­ca­tion–$3.3 bil­lion

Pub­lic Util­i­ties–$2.4 bil­lion

So­cial De­vel­op­ment–$2.4

Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion–$2.1 bil­lion

Works and Trans­port –$1.8 bil­lion

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment–$1.6 bil­lion

Cul­ture–$350 mil­lion

Sports–$295 mil­lion

Fi­nance–$5.5 bil­lion (down from $7 bil­lion in 2009

To­ba­go–$ 1.47 bil­lion