Gail Alexan­der

He was suc­cinct as usu­al. To the point. And per­haps a tad more straight­for­ward.

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie at yes­ter­day's law term open­ing, de­liv­ered much food for thought in his re­view and rec­om­men­da­tion on the jus­tice sys­tem. If tele­vi­sion cam­eras weren't show­ing it di­rect­ly, rapt at­ten­tion would have been paid to his state­ments by Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives; though the Op­po­si­tion–which has deemed it­self the al­ter­na­tive gov­ern­ment–was in short sup­ply at the func­tion.

Archie's con­cerns come in enough time for Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er and/or fac­tor in­to the up­com­ing 2017 Bud­get.

In the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Wednes­day, be­tween Op­po­si­tion buzz on Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley's as­sort­ed state­ments and Gov­ern­ment si­lence on UNC MP Bhoe Tewarie's dis­course on the For­eign Ac­count Tax Com­pli­ance leg­is­la­tion, Gov­ern­ment's half-minute an­nounce­ment of the Sep­tem­ber 30 Bud­get date, launched of­fi­cial count­down of sus­pense to his pack­age.

Some are dread­ing it fol­low­ing spec­u­la­tion of "aus­ter­i­ty" mea­sures. But Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, the on­ly one who knows Bud­get con­tents, hasn't said any­thing of such. It'll un­fold Tues­day if Bud­get spec­u­la­tion will be dealt with by Im­bert, his boss and col­league At­tor­ney-Gen­er­al at an up­com­ing PNM meet­ing in Champs Fleurs, an ap­par­ent Bud­get cur­tain-rais­er.

Row­ley, who'd pre­ced­ed Im­bert in Wednes­day's ses­sion, had been busy bring­ing MPs up to speed on the lat­est re­gard­ing a range of is­sues on which the Op­po­si­tion had sought an­swers on the pub­lic's be­half. His replies–break­ing news–re­ceived close at­ten­tion from Op­po­si­tion MPs fir­ing fol­low-up queries.

It's been Op­po­si­tion MPs such as Su­ruj Ram­bachan, Rod­ney Charles and oth­ers who, in var­i­ous com­ments have brought to the fore the plight of cit­i­zens such as autis­tic Gas­par­il­lo res­i­dent Car­la Ar­cha­lal whose mur­der was the week's most trag­ic hu­man in­ter­est sto­ry, made more ur­gent by the cause: crime.

Ar­cha­lal's death is part of an un­want­ed "wealth" of sto­ries stem­ming from the prob­lem, Gov­ern­ment's main chal­lenge apart from eco­nom­ic man­age­ment. This, in a time of oil price prob­lems and pro­jec­tions of a wors­en­ing en­er­gy sce­nario–if re­cent state­ments from BP of­fi­cials are cor­rect.

It's made se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns (and the CJ's jus­tice is­sues) all the more press­ing in Gov­ern­ment plan­ning. A fact well recog­nised, judg­ing from Row­ley's re­cent state­ment when he con­firmed $113 m will be spent for po­lice ser­vice in­tel-gath­er­ing sys­tems. This sig­nals na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty–which re­ceived top dol­lar in 2016–may again re­ceive a sig­nif­i­cant 2017 lev­el.

The ex­pect­ed small­er 2017 Bud­get may fall in­to the $52 bil­lion-$55 bil­lion brack­et, some PN­Mites spec­u­late; foun­da­tion be­ing tax­es, bor­row­ings, sub­sidy re­duc­tion and ra­tio­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of state en­ti­ties. Hints so far of those con­sid­ered, to re­duce du­pli­ca­tion: East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd, CISL, Ed­u­ca­tion Fa­cil­i­ties Com­pa­ny Ltd.

One­time PNM Min­is­ter in Fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne says, "We're in a sit­u­a­tion where the ex­pen­di­ture pro­file isn't sus­tain­able. The crit­i­cal is­sue is how well it's man­aged and how pri­or­i­ties are at­tached. We're one year late on this. T&T's prob­lem isn't re­al­ly rev­enue, but how to man­age ex­pen­di­ture."

While Browne said he doesn't project based on pub­lic spec­u­la­tion, he added, "in the cur­rent sce­nario, I don't see how (it) can be any­thing but an 'aus­ter­i­ty' Bud­get. They may have to cut sub­si­dies again. T&T has enough mon­ey to go around, but they must spend more ju­di­cious­ly."

How will this be bal­anced with the po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ties of lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions with­in months of each oth­er?

"Gov­ern­ment may have lit­tle choic­es in the eco­nom­ic sce­nario. We've had no re­al aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures. A re­al aus­ter­i­ty pack­age would be to cut al­most every­thing. Be­yond that, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter will have to bor­row or re­turn to the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund in big­ger fig­ures. Ef­fects on the pub­lic? Like­ly in­fla­tion, eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion, high­er un­em­ploy­ment–tougher all round. We're still in a sit­u­a­tion sim­i­lar to 1986. There's not much we can do so Gov­ern­ment will have to en­sure so­cial pro­grammes."

Browne's pro­jec­tion may (or may not) flesh out gen­er­al state­ments al­ready made. Row­ley's re­cent ad­dress to the na­tion on T&T's di­rec­tion ahead–an ap­pro­pri­ate Bud­get cur­tain rais­er–was as blunt as CJ Archie's yes­ter­day. No rose-tint­ed spec­ta­cle lens ap­par­ent in his ex­pla­na­tions on chal­lenges and what needs to be done. By all.

The key to cop­ing which will be test­ed: Row­ley's chal­lenge for folks to dig deep. Be­yond pock­ets, in­to cre­ativ­i­ty to deal with what lies ahead.