AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Colm Im­bert’s over five-hour long bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion is com­ing un­der crit­i­cism for its length, with for­mer fi­nance min­is­ters say­ing it was a form of abuse in­flict­ed on the pop­u­la­tion. They said the speech could have been an hour.

Im­bert spoke for a whop­ping five hours, ten min­utes and 47 sec­onds on Mon­day as he de­liv­ered his 2024/2025 fis­cal pack­age to the Par­lia­ment and by ex­ten­sion the na­tion.

It was by far his longest pre­sen­ta­tion since as­sum­ing his port­fo­lio in 2015.

His ad­dress in 2023 came in sec­ond, with his speak­ing time clock­ing in at four hours, sev­en min­utes and 28 sec­onds.

At one point dur­ing Mon­day’s sit­ting, while the min­is­ter was still on his legs, St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen post­ed to Face­book, “It’s been 5 hours...and count­ing #Bud­get­Pain.”

Even in at­tempt­ing to set­tle down a rest­less Op­po­si­tion bench be­fore the four-hour mark, House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George at one time said, “So ho­n­ourable mem­bers, I know it’s been a bit long, but I will ask you all to main­tain the deco­rum you’ve been show­ing at the start.”

Af­ter in­di­cat­ing to Min­is­ter Im­bert that he could re­sume, he said with a smile, “I have lots more to talk about.”

Ear­li­er in the sit­ting Im­bert ac­knowl­edged and even teased about his lengthy speak­ing time.

“It is not pos­si­ble for me to speak on every ac­tiv­i­ty, plan or pro­gramme of the Gov­ern­ment, oth­er­wise I’d have to speak for ten hours, apart from be­ing im­prac­ti­cal that would be un­kind to the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion who has tried with­out suc­cess to match my speak­ing time over the last nine years,” he said with an­oth­er smirk.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader has al­ready in­di­cat­ed she will not be near­ly as long as the Fi­nance Min­is­ter when she re­sponds on Fri­day.

But for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira be­lieves the min­is­ter’s quips and smirks dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion are in­sults to a pop­u­la­tion that lis­tens to the bud­get with bat­ed breath.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Nunez-Tesheira, who served from 2007 and 2010, said the bud­get state­ment al­most felt like abuse, which the min­is­ter seemed to en­joy.

“It was not right, it was un­fair, it was an abuse of the pow­er that he has, which he knew he has, and it did not help that he was smirk­ing and ap­peared to take some per­verse plea­sure in what he was do­ing. That may not be the case, but it did come across very much like that and I hope that it is the last time we ever have to hear a speech from that min­is­ter,” she ar­gued.

The for­mer min­is­ter said she usu­al­ly kept her bud­get state­ments un­der three hours be­cause the prime min­is­ter at the time, who him­self served as a fi­nance min­is­ter, would nev­er al­low any­thing longer.

“The (for­mer) prime min­is­ter (Patrick Man­ning) would have not have al­lowed that, it would have not have oc­curred for me to do it be­cause you are sub­ject­ing peo­ple to some­thing that is un­nec­es­sary,” she added.

Mean­while, an­oth­er for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter be­lieves the en­tire pre­sen­ta­tion could have been one hour long.

Bri­an Kuei Tung, who served un­der the UNC be­tween 1995 and 2000 said, “My bud­gets used to be an hour long, a lit­tle more than an hour and some peo­ple re­gard­ed me as one of the bet­ter min­is­ters of fi­nance.”

Kuei Tung ad­vised Guardian Me­dia to look at oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions such as the Unit­ed King­dom to see how long its gov­ern­ment takes to present its bud­get.

In its 2023 Fi­nan­cial State­ment and Bud­get Re­port, for­mer Chan­cel­lor of the Ex­che­quer Je­re­my Hunt’s speech last­ed on­ly one hour and one minute.

In 2022, Bar­ba­dos’ Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, who al­so serves as the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, spoke for around three hours and 40 min­utes. That same year in Ja­maica, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Nigel Clarke’s bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion clocked in at three hours and ten min­utes. But re­gard­ing Im­bert’s marathon ses­sion on Mon­day, econ­o­mist Dr In­dera Sage­wan told CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme that the min­is­ter’s pre­sen­ta­tion was “quite painful.”

“I think that must be a record,” she claimed.

Min­is­ter Im­bert could not be reached for com­ment.