Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment has sup­ple­ment­ed the 2025 Bud­get of $59.7 bil­lion with a to­tal of $3.14 bil­lion more for 28 min­istries and di­vi­sions af­ter the past Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment’s “fis­cal fi­nan­cial reck­less­ness,” says Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion PNM MP and for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day said cer­tain sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing for the Par­lia­ment—in­clud­ing $13.7 mil­lion for the pay­ment of salaries and ar­rears stem­ming from the 120th Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s (SRC) re­port, is for back­pay for UNC MPs of the pre­vi­ous Par­lia­ment.

And Op­po­si­tion PNM whip and for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les re­vealed that $750,000 was spent on the May 23 cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the 13th Par­lia­ment’s term un­der the new UNC Gov­ern­ment.

Im­bert and Gon­za­les grilled Tan­coo on the is­sues at yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s (SFC) stormy de­lib­er­a­tions in Par­lia­ment.

Ap­proval was giv­en for a to­tal of $3.14 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing for the 28 min­istries and di­vi­sions.

The sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing of $3,143,983,761 in­creas­es the 2025 Bud­get of $58.9 bil­lion. The ad­di­tion­al fund­ing will take the var­i­ous di­vi­sions over the next three months to the end of the 2025 fis­cal year in Sep­tem­ber.

The Health Min­istry re­ceived the high­est sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing—$728.5 mil­lion. The fund­ing was dis­cussed ahead of to­mor­row’s mid-year re­view of the 2025 Bud­get. Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Tan­coo said the $3.14 bil­lion sup­ple­men­ta­tion was “...due to the fis­cal fi­nan­cial reck­less­ness and free-for-all un­der­tak­en by the for­mer gov­ern­ment, where we were spend­ing mon­ey with­out plan­ning or mak­ing prop­er pay­ment arrange­ments.”

“As a re­sult, we’ve had a crash of the econ­o­my. Thanks to us now be­ing in Gov­ern­ment, we have ac­cess to the in­for­ma­tion. A lot more will be said in the mid-year re­view on Wednes­day, when we’ll be able to show how this for­mer gov­ern­ment crashed the econ­o­my and the ef­fect it would have had on min­istries and the pub­lic.”

Im­bert, Tan­coo clash
on $$ for UNC MPs

Tan­coo said the Par­lia­ment re­ceived to­tal sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing of $27,988,000.

He added, “It was re­quired to meet unan­tic­i­pat­ed costs, be­ing the pay­ment of ar­rears of salary owed to hold­ers of pub­lic of­fices aris­ing from the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the 120th Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion, as well as for ex­pens­es to be in­curred un­der an ar­ray of items list­ed un­der goods and ser­vices.”

Im­bert asked Tan­coo about an item in the list­ing of var­i­ous funds for Par­lia­ment - in­volv­ing $13,699,200—and whether Tan­coo was say­ing he was un­aware that item was back­pay for Op­po­si­tion UNC MPs as a re­sult of the SRC re­port.

“Is the min­is­ter say­ing he’s not aware this item is to pay him and his col­leagues back­pay aris­ing from SRC’s re­port?” Im­bert added.

Tan­coo said, “The 120th re­port of the SRC was brought by the PNM gov­ern­ment and ap­proved in Par­lia­ment by the PNM gov­ern­ment. That (PNM) side is very well aware that this to deal with sev­er­al class­es of in­di­vid­u­als—it’s not for pay­ments of the Op­po­si­tion. It’s for pay­ments of Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, in­clud­ing your­selves, and this was brought by the PNM gov­ern­ment!”

Im­bert re­spond­ed, “That state­ment is in­cor­rect. We’re deal­ing with the Par­lia­ment, we’re deal­ing with Head 05, item 001, sub-item 01. This has noth­ing to do with per­sons who are on this side at this point in time. This deals with Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in the pre­vi­ous Par­lia­ment and is the min­is­ter say­ing he’s un­aware this item is for him to get back­pay!”

Tan­coo urged PNM MPs to read the ex­plana­to­ry notes ac­com­pa­ny­ing the sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing, stat­ing, “The pur­pose of this is to ho­n­our the pay­ment of ar­rears of salaries as per the 120th re­port of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion, as well as for in­creased month­ly pay­ments. The ar­rears of salaries have been au­dit­ed and have been sched­uled for pay­ment.’ The ar­rears of salaries are due to Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment - in­clud­ing the Mem­ber op­po­site ...”

“No way! That’s not true,” Im­bert in­ter­ject­ed.

Tan­coo con­tin­ued, “Sen­a­tors, Mem­bers of the House, deputy Speak­ers, Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, Clerk of the House, Clerk of the Sen­ate, Om­buds­man, ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer to the Om­buds­man, Head of Le­gal and State Coun­sel 1...”

Im­bert asked if Tan­coo was un­aware that the mat­ter was on­ly for for­mer UNC Op­po­si­tion MPs, “and doesn’t in­clude any pay­ment for MPs on this (PNM) side, is he un­aware of this fact, be­cause he keeps say­ing it’s for peo­ple on this (PNM) side which I know isn’t true. So, is he un­aware this is for his back­pay and his UNC col­leagues in the for­mer House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives?”

Tan­coo re­peat­ed his list­ing of the of­fices car­ried in the ex­plana­to­ry notes.

PNM MP and for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­quest­ed a break­down of how much of the $13.7m is to be used to pay MPs the ar­rears in the dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories list­ed.

Tan­coo said the re­quest will be con­sid­ered, though fac­tors were in­volved, es­pe­cial­ly when in­for­ma­tion needs to be "tab­u­lat­ed.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly asked if there’s go­ing to be a re­quest made by the Par­lia­ment for the in­for­ma­tion with­in a spe­cif­ic time­frame. PNM MP, for­mer En­er­gy min­is­ter and prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young said Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Or­der al­lows mem­bers to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion from rel­e­vant ac­count­ing of­fi­cers and it is in­cum­bent up­on them to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion re­quest­ed.

$750,000 launch
of Par­lia­ment term

PNM’s Gon­za­les al­so not­ed a line item on the doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to host­ing of con­fer­ences, sem­i­nars and oth­er func­tions. He said he saw an in­crease in the al­lo­ca­tion by $750,000 and he was ad­vised that $750,000 was for the May 23 cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment. That fol­lowed the UNC Gov­ern­ment’s April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion win.

“Can the min­is­ter give some in­for­ma­tion with re­spect to the ser­vice providers that would have ac­count­ed for $750,000 for the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the Par­lia­ment?” Gon­za­les added.

Tan­coo didn’t have that at hand and of­fered it in writ­ing in due course. Gon­za­les asked if that would be by to­mor­row’s mid-year re­view, to which Tan­coo said he’d try his best.

Im­bert asked for a break­down of the $750,000 spent on the Par­lia­ment launch.

MIN­ISTRIES, DI­VI­SIONS RE­CEIV­ING AD­DI­TION­AL FUND­ING

* Pres­i­dent - $1m

* Au­di­tor Gen­er­al - $4,982,000

* Ju­di­cia­ry - $50m

* In­dus­tri­al Court - $771,000

* Par­lia­ment - $27,988,000

* Ser­vice Com­mis­sions - $1,500,000

* Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ty Ser­vice Com­mis­sion - $1,325,500

* Tax Ap­peal Board - $270,000

* Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion & Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board - $637,300

* Pub­lic Ser­vice Ap­peal Board - $1,346,000

* Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter - $128,403, 880.

* Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­istry - $1,325, 811,000

* In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion - $1,625,000

* To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly - $32,740,140.

* Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry - $13,900,000

* T&T Po­lice Ser­vice - $119,117,400

* Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs - $89,492,221.

* Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry - $489,470,000

* Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry - $455, 106,000

* Health Min­istry - $728,539,920

* Labour Min­istry - $55,668,400

* En­er­gy & En­er­gy In­dus­tries - $1,300,000

* Rur­al De­vel­op­ment & Lo­cal Govt Min­istry - $122,114,000

* Works & Trans­port Min­istry- $325,208,000

* Hous­ing & Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­istry - $25m

* Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Tri­bunal - $358,000

* Agri­cul­ture, Lands & Fish­eries Min­istry - $9,610,000

* Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Min­istry - $130,700,000