Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Agri­cul­ture Min­istry which paid “sig­nif­i­cant sums” on ar­rears for elec­tric­i­ty costs in 2022, al­so paid al­most $553,000 on sim­i­lar ar­rears in 2023. And the min­istry is cur­rent­ly do­ing a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ex­er­cise with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) to bring all its ac­counts up to date.

The same min­istry paid Flow and TSTT $16.7 mil­lion in ar­rears for phones in 2023. This was af­ter all min­istries were man­dat­ed in 2022 to clear ar­rears to util­i­ty com­pa­nies.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Avinash Singh gave the in­for­ma­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day. This was dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee‘s ex­am­i­na­tion of the min­istry’s $776.5M al­lo­ca­tion for 2024 and items in Bud­get doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to min­istry ex­pen­di­ture. Singh spoke in the ab­sence of Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein. Cou­va North Ravi Rati­ram ex­pressed wish­es for Ho­sein’s re­cov­ery as he said he un­der­stood Ho­sein was un­well.

Aside from Rati­ram, Singh was al­so ques­tioned by Op­po­si­tion MPs Sad­dam Ho­sein, Khadi­jah Ameen, Rudranath In­dars­ingh, Rai Rag­bir, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, and Van­dana Mo­hit.

Un­der the head­ing of elec­tric­i­ty in Bud­get doc­u­ments per­tain­ing to the min­istry, Rati­ram queried the list­ed fig­ure of $565,000 in 2022. But he said the item was on­ly bud­get­ed at $500,000 in 2023 with a re­vised es­ti­mate of $840,000 and an es­ti­mate of $1.3M for 2024. Rati­ram asked if the min­istry has out­stand­ing ar­rears for elec­tric­i­ty to take care of.

Singh ex­plained, “Yes, in fact the 2022 ‘ac­tu­al’ was when a sig­nif­i­cant sum was paid for ar­rears at that point in time and we’re cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ex­er­cise with T&TEC to bring all our ac­counts up to date. So some the ar­rears would al­so have been met in 2023. So this bud­get in 2024 is suf­fi­cient.”

Rati­ram said that for tele­phones, what was seen for 2023 from the es­ti­mate of $9.8M—the re­vised es­ti­mate is $13.1M. He queried the rea­son for this sig­nif­i­cant in­crease.

Singh said, “Some of the ar­rears were paid in 2023—$16.7M to Flow and TSTT. That’s why you’re see­ing a de­crease now. Again, we’re con­duct­ing a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion ex­er­cise to fa­cil­i­tate pay­ments if there are any in terms of ar­rears go­ing for­ward.”

Rati­ram said that in terms of plan­ning for 2024, a de­crease of $10.6M is be­ing seen, bring­ing the 2024 es­ti­mate to $2.5M.

“Based on the pre­vi­ous fig­ures would $2.5M be suf­fi­cient or would that have to be sup­ple­ment­ed in mid-year re­view?” Rati­ram asked.

Singh replied, “In 2022 I think most min­istries were giv­en a di­rec­tive to clear most of our util­i­ties so that’s why a sig­nif­i­cant sum was made and pro­vid­ed for in 2022. The $2.5M we get in 2024—if we re­quire again af­ter the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, we’ll be hap­py to ap­proach the ho­n­ourable Fi­nance Min­is­ter in mid-year.”

Al­so un­der elec­tric­i­ty (Agri­cul­ture), Rati­ram said of an es­ti­mate for 2023 of $500,000, the re­vised es­ti­mate thus far was $1.6M. He cit­ed a fur­ther es­ti­mate for 2024 of $500,000 again. Rati­ram queried the rea­son for the sig­nif­i­cant in­crease of $1.1M for the re­vised es­ti­mate of 2023.

Singh said, “Ar­rears in the sum of $552,353 and 40 cents was paid in 2023 for five sub­di­vi­sions (in­clud­ing re­gion­al ad­min­is­tra­tion north/south, Re­search, Ex­ten­sion, Train­ing and In­for­ma­tion and the Agri­cul­tur­al Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

“As I’ve said, we’re cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of all util­i­ties af­ter which we’ll be able to pro­vide what’s out­stand­ing.”

Ameen, cit­ing re­ports of nu­mer­ous gov­ern­ment agen­cies ow­ing T&TEC and WASA, re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion on sums owed by the min­istry and its agen­cies to the two util­i­ties. Singh promised to give a full list­ing.