Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo was in full flight in Mon­day’s Bud­get de­but, flush in spot­light mo­ment.

Loud, desk-thump­ing, back-up cho­rus­ing “… Every­body wins!”—yelling sup­port from Gov­ern­ment col­leagues, test­ing Par­lia­ment cham­ber deci­bel lev­els sup­port­ing the 2026 Bud­get, be­ing seen in var­i­ous quar­ters as in synch with the Sea­son of Light.

A sub­se­quent US strike on an al­leged drug boat in which two T&T na­tion­als were killed have, how­ev­er, stolen the Bud­get spot­light, call­ing in­to stiff ques­tion the Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port of re­cent US mil­i­tary “hits” on ves­sels—and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ac­com­pa­ny­ing “Kill them all vi­o­lent­ly” stance.

With An­tigua and oth­er Cari­com states against US mil­i­tary ac­tion—An­tigua re­ject­ing the US’ first ap­proach to have a mil­i­tary base there and op­po­si­tion in Grena­da to hav­ing one there—this week’s Cari­com meet­ing dis­cussed is­sues, in­clud­ing the US mil­i­tary pres­ence. In­for­ma­tion on the T&T na­tion­als’ death wasn’t on hand, it’s un­der­stood. The two men’s deaths have com­pound­ed the sit­u­a­tion—es­pe­cial­ly for T&T’s Gov­ern­ment, now be­tween na­tion­al and US in­ter­est.

It’s ahead when En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal an­nounces the Venezuela Drag­on gas ne­go­ti­a­tion. Venezuela’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, no­tice­ably ab­sent from the PM’s Di­vali prayers, at­tend­ed the For­eign Min­istry’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions—and was again hailed as T&T’s “good friend.” Re­spec­tive at­ten­dance showed Venezuela’s clo­sure to dis­re­spect­ful state­ments, though of­fi­cial­ly open to work­ing with T&T.

Amid Mon­day’s “show” of UNC po­lit­i­cal force, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ny Beck­les’ Bud­get re­ply yes­ter­day at­tempt­ed to stamp on every Bud­get “plum,” re­veal­ing un­savoury as­pects, de­clar­ing dire con­se­quences ahead and throw­ing UNC’s Op­po­si­tion days state­ments about non-tax­ing back in the UNC’s col­lec­tive face—down to de­fend­ing drinkers. Mi­nus Tan­coo’s dra­mat­ic flair, Beck­les had vo­cal sup­port from Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment col­leagues.

On Mon­day, prompt­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar as he spoke, Tan­coo’s bal­ance of pro­vi­sions, perks and penal­ties for var­i­ous sec­tors, em­bell­ished with “Promis­es Kept!” em­pha­sis, sought to con­vey Gov­ern­ment’s de­liv­ery record and re­in­force its “When UNC wins every­body wins” an­them, late­ly soured by state sec­tor fir­ings.

How much the pos­i­tives and rev­enue-rais­ing mea­sures/sur­charges cost the pub­lic is ahead.

Amid heavy fi­nan­cial and eco­nom­ic con­straints, Gov­ern­ment has, how­ev­er, stuck to cau­tion with Bud­get size ($59.232 bil­lion), sim­i­lar to PNM’s 2025 pack­age ($59.741). While lim­it­ing “over­spend­ing” and “ex­cess” ac­cu­sa­tions, the Bud­get frame­work ac­knowl­edges fi­nan­cial chal­lenges fac­ing Gov­ern­ment.

With bor­row­ing stat­ed and the project 2026 deficit ($3.865B)—low­er than PNM’s 2025 deficit ($5.551B), mid-term sup­ple­men­ta­tion and more bor­row­ing are al­ready spec­u­lat­ed—even with a re­fin­ery in­vestor and oth­er in­flows.

With 2026 rev­enue ($55.367B) slight­ly high­er than the 2025 fig­ure ($54.224B), fund­ing in some ar­eas are re­duced com­pared to 2025, Bud­get doc­u­ments show. But fund­ing is slight­ly high­er for cer­tain ar­eas—though not PNM re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

Yes­ter­day, Port-of-Spain may­or Chin­ua Al­leyne de­clared of the re­duced al­lo­ca­tions PNM cor­po­ra­tions re­ceived, “This is pun­ish­ment, not pol­i­cy!”

In terms of en­force­ment of mea­sures, Gov­ern­ment’s de­tails are ahead in de­bate windup on penal­ties re­gard­ing de­fault­ing banks/in­sur­ance com­pa­nies on the As­set Levy and land­lord sur­charge. That sur­charge re­places the PNM’s prop­er­ty tax with a proven lu­cra­tive cat­e­go­ry, in a sec­tor al­so rich with is­sues and gaps.

Gov­ern­ment has shrewd­ly tak­en ad­van­tage of the tim­ing of its sta­tus as a pop­u­lar new Gov­ern­ment of big num­bers—and favourable po­lit­i­cal winds—to tack­le is­sues which the PNM didn’t: NIB rates, re­tire­ment age, and elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge.

The UNC Gov­ern­ment’s over­all in­creased To­ba­go fund­ing (so far) ap­pears to se­cure To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) an­oth­er THA term.

Whether TTP’s elec­tion ef­forts re­ceives any as­sis­tance- and what un­folds—from Wednes­day’s warm hand­shake be­tween Au­gus­tine and for­mer Peo­ple’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots col­league-lat­er-po­lit­i­cal foe Wat­son Duke is ahead.

Duke told the col­umn, “I’ve set aside my dif­fer­ences with Far­ley Au­gus­tine. I’ve al­ways stood by the be­lief that ‘To­ba­go must win’ and for To­ba­go to tru­ly win, no one among us can af­ford to be a los­er. It serves To­ba­go best when all its lead­ers rise above di­vi­sion and work hand in hand to build a stronger more unit­ed To­ba­go of­fer­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for all.”

If Gov­ern­ment’s been spare on cer­tain items, it’s ex­tend­ed to de­bate time. House de­bate was pro­ject­ed to end very late last night. What­ev­er’s said will add to the as­sess­ment of each side’s Bud­get per­for­mance.