As this ad­min­is­tra­tion’s term in of­fice clos­es, the po­lit­i­cal tem­po will quick­en. The 2025 bud­get speech will be read on Sep­tem­ber 30 and will car­ry added sig­nif­i­cance as it is the pref­ace to the po­lit­i­cal sil­ly sea­son. Log­ic sug­gests that in­cum­ben­cy has an ad­van­tage over those as­pir­ing to of­fice.

But it may not, as the econ­o­my is run­ning in­to strong head­winds.

There is good news. The rat­ing agen­cies have con­firmed the coun­try’s cred­it rat­ing.

The Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty has over­come its con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges as the Privy Coun­cil has con­firmed the Ap­peal Court’s judg­ment and dis­missed all ob­jec­tions. 

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter, in his af­fi­davit sup­port­ing the state’s po­si­tion, placed great em­pha­sis on the im­por­tance of the TTRA as a much-need­ed rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing de­vice to but­tress and im­prove the state’s tax col­lec­tion mech­a­nisms.

It is im­plied that gen­er­at­ing enough rev­enue is prob­lem­at­ic.

The af­fi­davit paint­ed a chal­leng­ing, if not dis­mal out­look on the Gov­ern­ment’s rev­enue po­si­tion for the next three years.

The min­is­ter not­ed that rev­enue had de­clined be­cause nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and mar­ket prices were al­so in de­cline. He warned of chal­leng­ing times ahead since no new gas pro­duc­tion was ex­pect­ed to come on stream un­til 2027. He al­so not­ed that the rev­enue in­creas­es in fis­cal 2021 and 2022 were the re­sult of tem­po­rary mar­ket sup­ply dis­rup­tions, which worked in T&T’s favour.

In the 2024 mid-year bud­get re­view, Min­is­ter Im­bert pro­ject­ed a fis­cal deficit of $9 bil­lion for 2024. The Cen­tral Bank’s Ju­ly Quar­ter­ly Eco­nom­ic Bul­letin re­port­ed a $4.3 bil­lion deficit for the nine months end­ing June, which is a bet­ter re­sult than pro­ject­ed by the min­is­ter.

The bud­get speech will con­firm whether the fi­nan­cial out­turn is as bad as pro­ject­ed. The coun­try has had on­ly one bud­get sur­plus in 16 years, and that sur­plus was un­planned.

In last year’s bud­get speech and as re­port­ed in the IMF’s Ar­ti­cle IV con­sul­ta­tion, the Gov­ern­ment did give cer­tain as­sur­ances that it would man­age the deficit with­in a nar­row range and ex­er­cise fis­cal re­straint. The chal­lenge is to main­tain that re­straint and re­build the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund in an elec­tion year.

The signs have not been pro­pi­tious. The Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion has ex­plained that school re­pairs were not com­plet­ed dur­ing the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od be­cause of fund­ing is­sues, which af­fect­ed the com­ple­tion of the re­quired work. The is­sue at St Georges is warm­ing up and is com­pound­ed by the on­go­ing com­plaints by TTUA over med­ical in­sur­ance claims. The im­passe with the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al has not yet been re­solved. 

What is the fi­nal po­si­tion for the 2023 fis­cal year?

At the open­ing of the new law term on Fri­day, the Chief Jus­tice com­plained of an im­passe with the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion over re­mu­ner­a­tion pack­ages for the Ju­di­cia­ry. He not­ed that the Ju­di­cia­ry’s abil­i­ty to at­tract and re­tain tal­ent was ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by the in­ad­e­quate terms and con­di­tions it could of­fer to staff.

The ex­ten­sion of the prop­er­ty tax pay­ment dead­line will bring some re­lief to har­ried tax­pay­ers but will not help 2024’s fi­nan­cial out­turn.

Col­lect­ing tax pay­ments ought not to have been such a har­row­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Sure­ly tax col­lec­tion is not as com­plex as the min­is­ter has at­tempt­ed to por­tray. What it re­vealed was an ab­ject lack of plan­ning.

We hope that the prop­er­ty tax col­lec­tion de­ba­cle is not a metaphor for the dif­fi­cul­ties we could face in 2025.