Gail M.M. Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The coun­try is fed up with a long list of bro­ken promis­es and dai­ly de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the qual­i­ty of peo­ple’s lives, so Mon­day’s Bud­get must tan­gi­bly ad­dress the key is­sues of se­cu­ri­ty, food, wa­ter, shel­ter, job cre­ation and job se­cu­ri­ty, for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath said yes­ter­day.

There must be spe­cif­ic at­ten­tion to new T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) ini­tia­tives on crime which is all per­va­sive, he added as he gave his pro­jec­tions for the 2023-2024 Bud­get which will be pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

“The Fi­nance Min­istry con­tin­ues to view the an­nu­al bud­get as a book­keep­ing ex­er­cise, bal­anc­ing deb­its and cred­its. In to­day’s world, it is not. The bud­get, in mod­ern-day think­ing, is meant to re­al­lo­cate re­sources based on so­cial and eco­nom­ic pri­or­i­ties, en­sur­ing sta­bil­i­ty and prepar­ing for growth and pros­per­i­ty,” Bharath said.

“No bud­get in the last eight years has ac­com­plished that! One on­ly has to look at the dis­mal growth rates over that pe­ri­od to es­tab­lish the Gov­ern­ment’s failed eco­nom­ic poli­cies - in­creased tax­a­tion, bor­row­ing, sale of state as­sets and ex­tract­ing from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund.

The net re­sult is a fall in re­al GDP of 20 per cent since 2015, a rise in food prices of over 30 per cent, forex short­ages, de­clin­ing pro­duc­tion of both oil and gas, high­er gas prices, cap­i­tal flight, mur­der­ous crime, woe­ful health care, di­lap­i­dat­ed in­fra­struc­ture and a failed ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.”

He added: “I sus­pect the Fi­nance Min­is­ter will beat his chest about the re­cent Drag­on Gas deal but quite frankly, un­til a con­tract is signed with a term sheet, a co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment is of no val­ue.

“As a coun­try, we’re at the bot­tom of Maslow’s hi­er­ar­chy of needs - food, shel­ter, wa­ter and se­cu­ri­ty - a so­ci­ety in the wilder­ness. We’re suf­fer­ing a cri­sis of con­fi­dence and any re­cent uptick in our rev­enue for­tunes is based, not on our own sweat, but on the blood of Ukrain­ian and Russ­ian sol­diers and civil­ians.”

Bharath said the bud­get should be fo­cused on mea­sures to ad­dress the fol­low­ing:

* Cre­ate a unit that links Po­lice, Cus­toms, Im­mi­gra­tion, Coast Guard and Air Guard and shares in­for­ma­tion.

* Es­tab­lish spe­cial­ized units in the TTPS to deal with gangs, hu­man traf­fick­ing, gun smug­gling and cy­ber­crime

* Re­view the wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gramme which is not work­ing

* Re-es­tab­lish com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing.

* Re­build crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions to de­liv­er goods and ser­vices ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly, e.g. NIB, Li­cens­ing Of­fice, WASA, So­cial Wel­fare, etc.

* Low­er food costs by re­mov­ing du­ties and tax­es on im­port­ed in­puts and prop­er­ly ad­dress is­sues in the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor. This sec­tor needs to be hand­held, much in the same way Point Lisas was many decades ago.

* Fast track reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals and re­view tax regime for up­stream pro­duc­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

* Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (SMEs), par­tic­u­lar­ly those in­volved in in­no­va­tion, must be in­cen­tivized and hand­held. The SME sec­tor con­tributes US$11.6 bil­lion and em­ploys more than 200,000 peo­ple. With prop­er at­ten­tion, both these num­bers can be sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased.

* VAT should be re­placed with sales tax. De­lays in VAT re­pay­ment are crip­pling to all busi­ness­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly SMEs.

* The ed­u­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum needs to be re­vamped im­me­di­ate­ly pay­ing par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to prepar­ing chil­dren for the jobs of the fu­ture, e.g. AI and cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, telemed­i­cine, re­new­able en­er­gy, con­tent cre­ation, an­i­ma­tion, and e-com­merce lo­gis­tics.

* T&T is cur­rent­ly in a hos­tile in­vest­ment en­vi­ron­ment. The ease of do­ing busi­ness has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the last few years. Cus­toms and Ex­cise, Ports, Bu­reau of Stan­dards, Chem­istry, Food and Drugs Di­vi­sion all re­quire over­haul for T&T to at­tract lo­cal and for­eign in­vest­ment dol­lars.