Opposition MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie says Government should develop a revenue strategy that is meaningful for T&T, particularly with declines in revenue due to falling energy prices.
In a radio interview ahead of today's budget presentation by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, the former Planning Minister warned against adopting a singular approach to dealing with the financial pressures expected to affect this country.
"I want say that if the government makes the error–and I want to advise them against that–of managing the fiscal space alone, the economy will go further into contraction," he said.
"Therefore, what they need to do, as well as manage the fiscal space, is to have a growth strategy for the economy and that is where it is critical. You have got to manage expenditure in relation to revenue and what that means is, you've got to decide whether he (Imbert) is going to cut expenditure and what he is going to cut to bring it down."
Tewarie said Imbert must decide whether to change the pattern of expenditure and how to reallocate resources. He said he also has to decide between the new expenditure and the new revenue he hopes to generate and how much deficit he is prepared to work with.
"Once he does that, he then has to decide whether or not he is willing to borrow–whether the government has an appetite for borrowing. On the basis of that he can decide what he wants to borrow for and how much he wishes to borrow. I think those are the critical areas and zones around which he has to manage his budgetary allocations, his revenue strategy, his deficit management and basically managing the fiscal space," he said.
Tewarie said the ideas espoused by the new administration were in the People's Partnership economic blueprint and would have been policy had the coalition party been returned to power.
"If you read the manifesto you would see that on page 79 we have managing under reduced oil and gas prices and there is a whole outline of what we would do with that. We said we would budget at US$45 for oil and US$2.25 for gas. We said we would limit the subsidies on fuel at the pump on the basis of that oil and gas price.
"We said that we would cut the subsidy on premium gas. We said that we would instruct all state enterprises to begin the process of living within their means understanding that we would have to reduce subsidies over time and ultimately eliminate it and they would have to make a profit. All of those things are said in the manifesto," he said.
"We also talked about a shareholding democracy in which we talked about selling some of the states employees to employees and also introducing that in the private sector, talking with the private sector to do that. We talked about a home owning democracy in which we would distribute land and houses so that people could be property owners in the system and we talked about ten projects that were all scheduled for public, private, partnership.
"The manifesto is very clear. I stand by it. It is good policy for the country."