Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The 2025/2026 Bud­get is tipped to be de­liv­ered on Mon­day (Oc­to­ber 13), say Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day’s cir­cu­la­tion of a date on so­cial me­dia, which was not of­fi­cial and was not an­nounced by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, has caused some con­cern for the Gov­ern­ment.

Word of the date arose in the pub­lic do­main when a pro­mo­tion for the event was cir­cu­lat­ed around UNC lev­els, reach­ing sup­port­ers.

The pro­mo­tion fea­tured a pic­ture of Tan­coo with the Red House Par­lia­ment build­ing in the back­ground. It stat­ed “Mon­day 13th Oc­to­ber @1.30 pm.”

It al­so stat­ed, “Na­tion­al Bud­get 2025/2026 pre­sent­ed by the Ho­n­ourable Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.”

How­ev­er, the date and pro­mo­tion of a Bud­get de­liv­ery is usu­al­ly giv­en by a Fi­nance Min­is­ter in the Par­lia­ment or via a state­ment from the min­istry.

Af­ter wide cir­cu­la­tion of the post and the wel­com­ing of the date by some en­ti­ties, top Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said the date “wasn’t” of­fi­cial.

Af­ter the 2024/2025 fis­cal year end­ed at the end of Sep­tem­ber and no Bud­get date was an­nounced, there had been in­creas­ing con­cern on when the Bud­get will ac­tu­al­ly be pre­sent­ed.

This is be­cause the 2026 Bud­get has to be in place by the end of this month for fund­ing of Gov­ern­ment op­er­a­tions—in­clud­ing salary pay­ments—to con­tin­ue smooth­ly.

Gon­za­les: Govt bungling

on Bud­get date

Yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les called out the Gov­ern­ment on bungling the Bud­get date.

Cit­ing yes­ter­day’s so­cial and tra­di­tion­al me­dia re­ports of the Bud­get date, Gon­za­les said, “This was nei­ther con­firmed by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter nor Prime Min­is­ter, de­spite it be­ing post­ed by a paid ju­nior min­is­te­r­i­al blog­ger who even­tu­al­ly re­moved the post. This is the sad state of gov­er­nance in T&T to­day—not even a Bud­get date can be prop­er­ly man­aged and com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the pop­u­la­tion!

“It’s tan­ta­mount to a na­tion­al tragedy and dis­re­spect when a Gov­ern­ment can­not man­age a sim­ple mat­ter of an­nounc­ing a Bud­get date. It is al­most un­think­able to imag­ine whether we can go low­er in our cur­rent na­tion­al cir­cum­stances. If the UNC can­not man­age things, just for­get about nam­ing a Bud­get date! Just call a date for fresh elec­tions!”

Bud­get de­layed to com­plete items

Once of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced, the mid-month Bud­get will be lat­er than the “ear­ly Oc­to­ber” Bud­get that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised three weeks ago, be­fore she went to the Unit­ed Na­tions ses­sion in New York.

Pri­or to that, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ini­tial­ly pro­ject­ed an Oc­to­ber 6 Bud­get date. Yes­ter­day, UNC sources said cer­tain Bud­get items had to be fi­nalised af­ter she re­turned from the UN last week.

When the Bud­get is even­tu­al­ly pre­sent­ed, Tan­coo, an econ­o­mist, will de­liv­er his first Bud­get for the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion. He had been UNC’s fi­nance and econ­o­my spokesman when the par­ty was in Op­po­si­tion.

Three days af­ter Tan­coo’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in the Low­er House, Op­po­si­tion PNM leader Pen­ny Beck­les will re­ply.

De­bate in the House will be fol­lowed by Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee scruti­ny of the Bud­get, then de­bate of the pack­age in the Sen­ate. That is usu­al­ly a 15-day process.

With a mid-month Bud­get de­liv­ery and the Oc­to­ber 20 Di­vali hol­i­day ahead, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were asked how the full process would be achieved in time for the pack­age to be ready for im­ple­men­ta­tion by mon­thend.

Gov­ern­ment sources said de­bates will like­ly be long, in­to the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing. One didn’t rule out sit­tings in­to week­ends.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had promised “a very good Bud­get.” Her hints al­so in­clud­ed that it would be a deficit Bud­get, and may have big­ger ex­pen­di­ture than rev­enue. She hint­ed at “cre­ative ways” to sup­ple­ment rev­enues and fi­nance deficits us­ing avail­able tools but didn’t be­lieve the deficit would be as high as ex­pect­ed.

The PNM gov­ern­ment’s 2024/2025 Bud­get was $59.741 bil­lion. Af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion which the PNM lost, the UNC Gov­ern­ment in June sought sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing of $3.1 bil­lion to car­ry op­er­a­tions to the end of that fis­cal year. That Bud­get had a deficit of $5.517 bil­lion, which was in­creased to $9 bil­lion by the sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing.

The up­com­ing Bud­get is tipped to be just over $60 bil­lion, sources said.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has re­quest­ed $3.71 bil­lion based on what the THA pro­ject­ed was a na­tion­al Bud­get of “$63.5 bil­lion.”

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said the Bud­get will rec­ti­fy “many things” which the Gov­ern­ment in­her­it­ed from the past ad­min­is­tra­tion. They said it would be a sta­bil­i­sa­tion and con­sol­i­da­tion pack­age, in­clud­ing pri­or­i­ty com­mit­ments the UNC made while in Op­po­si­tion.

They hint­ed at rev­enue-rais­ing ini­tia­tives, job cre­ation and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion plans with­in a tight­ly con­fig­ured frame­work. Pri­or­i­ty spend­ing is ex­pect­ed on se­cu­ri­ty, health, ed­u­ca­tion, and agri­cul­ture, with em­pha­sis al­so on projects in sports, util­i­ties, works and so­cial de­vel­op­ment.