Be­tween 2010 and 2024, the Gov­ern­ment of T&T spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly $798.3 bil­lion, yet earned on­ly $712.9 bil­lion, lead­ing to no­table deficits.

In 2010, un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP), the gov­ern­ment’s ex­pen­di­ture was at its low­est—just $43.6 bil­lion. How­ev­er, by 2014, gov­ern­ment spend­ing surged to $63.9 bil­lion, mark­ing a peak dur­ing the same ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Fast for­ward to 2022, and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) reached a his­toric mile­stone, with gov­ern­ment rev­enues hit­ting an im­pres­sive $58.3 bil­lion—the high­est of the en­tire pe­ri­od. The year 2020, un­der the strain of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, saw the sharpest dip, with rev­enue plum­met­ing to just $33.4 bil­lion. In this year, the Gov­ern­ment al­so faced the largest deficit in the span of the decade—$17.3 bil­lion—due to re­duced in­come and in­creased spend­ing.

Now, in 2025, econ­o­mists are in­creas­ing­ly con­cerned about the Gov­ern­ment’s abil­i­ty to ser­vice its ad­just­ed gen­er­al gov­ern­ment debt of around $140 bil­lion, ac­cord­ing to Cen­tral Bank da­ta.

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Ac­cord­ing to econ­o­mist Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, for­mer di­rec­tor of UWI’s In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions De­part­ment, the coun­try’s debt is wors­en­ing be­cause the gov­ern­ment bor­rows large amounts.

He said the amount of mon­ey be­ing used by the state to re­pay debt is in­creas­ing.

“The long-term im­pact is that, if you do that, you’ll have to keep bor­row­ing. I don’t think you could raise tax­es any­more, so you’ll have to keep bor­row­ing. And it would mean that your debt would keep go­ing up all the time, to the point that you would not be able to ser­vice it at a cer­tain point. Your debt-to-GDP per­cent ra­tio would start climb­ing up to the 90s and over 100. Our debt ser­vic­ing ra­tio is climb­ing,” he said last Sun­day.

Ac­cord­ing to Cen­tral Bank da­ta, T&T’s ad­just­ed gen­er­al gov­ern­ment debt stood at $142.1 bil­lion as of De­cem­ber 2024.

And ac­cord­ing to IMF da­ta, T&T’s gen­er­al gov­ern­ment gross debt to GDP ra­tio in­creased by 199 per­cent be­tween 2010 and 2025 (20.9 per­cent in 2010 to 62.5 per­cent in 2025).

Dr Gon­za­les said, as a re­sult, the new gov­ern­ment will al­most cer­tain­ly have to cut ex­pen­di­ture, chang­ing life as the coun­try knows it or, at least, once knew it.

Based on Cen­tral Bank’s Pub­lic Fi­nance Fis­cal da­ta, be­tween 2015 and 2023 the gov­ern­ment spent $60 bil­lion on in­ter­est pay­ments to ser­vice its debts.

Un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, be­tween 2010 and 2015, $18.9 bil­lion was spent on in­ter­est pay­ments - an an­nu­al av­er­age of $3.15 bil­lion.

Un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment, be­tween 2016 and 2023, $41.2 bil­lion was spent on in­ter­est pay­ments - an an­nu­al av­er­age of $5.16 bil­lion - a 64 per cent in­crease from the PP’s tenure.

The eco­nom­ic poli­cies of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, which served be­tween 2010 and 2015, and the PNM gov­ern­ment, which served from 2015 un­til its re­cent elec­tion de­feat, did not yield the kind of fruits the coun­try need­ed, ac­cord­ing to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Eco­nom­ics pro­fes­sor Roger Ho­sein.

“For in­stance, I would have thought sig­nif­i­cant­ly more would have been done on the ex­port di­ver­si­ty fund, in par­tic­u­lar ad­vanc­ing the cause of the ETeck parks to help at­tract pri­vate cap­i­tal and to help at­tract for­eign cap­i­tal.

“In­stead, what we see is an econ­o­my where the labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion rate has de­creased con­sid­er­ably, to the ex­tent that in 2024, it’s about 55 per cent, and for 2022, 2023, 2024, the coun­try record­ed the high­est num­ber of back-to-back mur­ders.

“So, to me, the gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture in the pe­ri­od 2010 to 2024 did not help to gen­er­ate the kind of eco­nom­ic re­turns one would like and there­fore, it’s a place from which pol­i­cy­mak­ers would have to put deep thought, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers would have to re­ori­ent their thing to help im­prove labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion rates, re­duce the crime lev­el and by ex­ten­sion, put in place mea­sures to help im­prove eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

“But one of the things we have to be very, very care­ful of is that we just don’t want eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty to im­prove in the coun­try as a whole, giv­en the for­eign ex­change sit­u­a­tion now, where the dif­fer­ence be­tween the stock of re­serves and the ex­ter­nal debt is about neg­a­tive US$217 mil­lion. We need eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty that could gen­er­ate for­eign ex­change, not use for­eign ex­change,” the econ­o­mist, who has a PhD from Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, said.

Com­par­ing the PP and PNM’s Eco­nom­ic Per­for­mances

Be­tween 2016 and 2023, un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment, the cen­tral gov­ern­ment’s ac­counts ran a deficit (loss) of $40.1 bil­lion.

That’s an av­er­age deficit of $5 bil­lion a year.

The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s ac­counts ran a sur­plus (gain) of $3.8 bil­lion dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship stint in gov­ern­ment be­tween 2010 and 2015.

An an­nu­al av­er­age sur­plus of $630 mil­lion.

It is im­por­tant to note that the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment was in pow­er for one term (2010 to 2015) and the PNM gov­ern­ment has been in pow­er for two suc­ces­sive terms (2015 to 2020, and 2020 to 2025).

Dur­ing for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s tenure, the av­er­age crude oil price per bar­rel was US$66.20, 29 per cent less than it was un­der Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s PP (US$93.70).

Un­der the PP, there was an av­er­age Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment an­nu­al oil rev­enue of $16.7 bil­lion, while un­der the PNM, the av­er­age was $11.2 bil­lion.

The PNM brought more in­come in­to the state’s cof­fers through non-en­er­gy streams, with an an­nu­al av­er­age of $32.3 bil­lion com­pared to the PP’s $30.2 bil­lion.

The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s av­er­age an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture un­der Dr Row­ley was $57.8 bil­lion which is, more or less, the same av­er­age an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture in­curred un­der Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ($57 bil­lion).

The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s av­er­age an­nu­al rev­enue un­der Dr Row­ley was $44.3 bil­lion, 14 per cent less than the $51.7 bil­lion un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ob­tained more rev­enue than the PNM from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment tax­es. The PP brought in an an­nu­al av­er­age rev­enue from tax­es of $41.6 bil­lion, while the PNM brought in $33.4 bil­lion.

The PNM man­aged to se­cure more Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment in­come from non-tax av­enues with an an­nu­al av­er­age of $9.5 bil­lion com­pared to the PP’s $8.3 bil­lion.

The PNM paid out more, on av­er­age, an­nu­al­ly on sub­si­dies - $260 mil­lion com­pared to PP’s $251.2 mil­lion.

Un­der the PP, there was more Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment fund­ing for non-prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tions, ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and house­holds.

The PP av­er­aged $283.7 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in trans­fers to non-prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tions; $1.8 bil­lion in trans­fers to ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions; and $10.9 bil­lion to house­holds.

The PNM av­er­aged 24 per cent less in trans­fers to non-prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tions ($222.3 mil­lion); 38 per cent less in trans­fers to ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions ($1.22 bil­lion); and nine per cent less in trans­fers to house­holds ($9.9 bil­lion).

The Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship in Num­bers - 2010 to 2015 (put in box)

• Tenure av­er­aged $8 bil­lion in an­nu­al bud­get deficits.

• Lo­cal debts in­creased by 143.6 per cent ($14.9 bil­lion to $36.3 bil­lion) be­tween 2010 and 2015.

• For­eign debts in­creased by 28 per cent.

• No debts were added from the Cen­tral Bank or in­di­vid­u­als.

• Debts owed to lo­cal com­mer­cial banks de­creased by 71 per cent.

• Debts to the In­ter­na­tion­al Bank for Re­con­struc­tion and De­vel­op­ment de­creased by 68 per cent.

• Debts to the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank in­creased by 70 per cent.

• Debts via notes and bonds in­creased by 140 per cent.

• Debts to Japan­ese banks de­creased by 29 per cent.

• Debts to Chi­nese banks in­creased 21 per cent.

• Pub­lic Debt in­creased by 74 per cent.

• $29.8 bil­lion in pub­lic debt charges paid off - an av­er­age of $5 bil­lion per year.

• $1.4 bil­lion debt to Eng­lish banks paid off.

• A debt of $237.9 mil­lion was added from the Eu­ro­pean In­vest­ment Bank.

Hold­ers of Ex­ter­nal Debt

2015

IBRD - $40.7 mil­lion

IADB - $3.75 bil­lion

CDB - $261.1 mil­lion

EIB - $237.9 mil­lion

Notes & Bonds - $6 bil­lion

Japan­ese Banks - $605 mil­lion

Chi­nese Banks - $791.2 mil­lion

19 For­eign Loans Tak­en Out

• 2010- Two loans from IADB - USD - $93.6 mil­lion to pur­chase four he­li­copters.

• 2011 - Three loans

1. Two IADB - US - $140 Mil­lion - $80 mil­lion in sup­port of cli­mate change pol­i­cy, leg­isla­tive and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form & $50 mil­lion to en­sure strength­en­ing of the fi­nan­cial sec­tor.

2. One Ex­port and Im­port Bank of Chi­na - Yuan - $207 mil­lion - Con­ces­sion­al loan for NA­PA project to pay off re­me­di­al works.

• 2012 - Three loans

1. $1.5b bond (6 per­cent) - $1.6 bil­lion - used to fi­nance pay­outs for CLI­CO pol­i­cy­hold­ers.

2. $2.5b bond (5.2 per cent) - $2.8 bil­lion - used to pay li­a­bil­i­ties for con­trac­tors, wages and oth­er li­a­bil­i­ties.

3. Coupon Bonds CLI­CO - $9.1 bil­lion - used to set­tle mon­ey owed to 15,794 short-term in­vest­ment prod­ucts from CLI­CO and British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

• 2013 - Six loans

1. IADB - USD - $246.5 mil­lion - Mul­ti-Phase Pro­gramme Waste­Water Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Pro­gramme.

2. Uni­Cred­it Bank of Aus­tria - Eu­ros - $33.8 mil­lion - UWI South Cam­pus - Chancery Lane.

3. HS­BC - USD - $27.2 mil­lion - Dig­i­tal Pub­lic Safe­ty Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Sys­tem for the T&T Po­lice and Fire Ser­vices.

4. Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Chi­na - Yuan - $990 mil­lion - Con­ces­sion­al Loan Agree­ment for the Con­struc­tion of the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.

5. Cit­i­group - USD - $141.6 mil­lion - Non-Ho­n­our­ing of For­eign Oblig­a­tion Term Loan Fa­cil­i­ty- Con­struc­tion of the Pe­nal Hos­pi­tal and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre.

6. Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Chi­na - USD - $85 mil­lion - Six Na­tion­al Sport­ing Fa­cil­i­ties. Con­struc­tion of Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre, Na­tion­al Ten­nis Cen­tre.

• 2014 - Four loans

1. Deutsche Bank - US $550 mil­lion - US$550 mil­lion bond.

2. IADB - US$20 mil­lion - Strength­ened in­for­ma­tion man­age­ment sys­tem at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s Of­fice.

3. IADB - US$120 mil­lion - TT Flood al­le­vi­a­tion and drainage pro­gramme for the City of Port-of-Spain.

4. IADB - US$18 mil­lion - Glob­al Ser­vices Pro­mo­tions Pro­gramme.

• 2015 - One loan

Deutsche Bank Trust Com­pa­ny Amer­i­c­as - USD - $40 mil­lion - Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank Loan - En­er­gy Sec­tor Sup­port Pol­i­cy-Based Loan - to as­sist in re­in­forc­ing pol­i­cy changes in the en­er­gy sec­tor, with­in the con­text of a sus­tain­able en­er­gy pro­gramme that the coun­try em­barked on in 2011. A PBL is a spe­cial prod­uct from the bank that of­fers re­sources at ex­treme­ly low in­ter­est rates.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in Num­bers - 2016 to 2023.

• An av­er­age an­nu­al bud­get deficit of $2.2 bil­lion.

• Pub­lic debt in­creased by 76 per cent.

• Lo­cal debts in­creased by 83 per cent.

• For­eign debts in­creased by 44 per cent.

• Cen­tral Bank debt in­creased by 17 per cent.

• Debts owed to lo­cal com­mer­cial banks in­creased by 201 per cent.

• Debts owed to in­di­vid­u­als in­creased by 725 per cent.

• Debts owed from Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank loans de­creased by 65 per cent.

• Debts owed from Eu­ro­pean In­vest­ment Bank loans de­creased by 51.2 per cent.

• Debts due to notes and bonds in­creased by 24 per cent.

• Chi­nese bank debt de­creased by 40 per cent.

• Debts to Japan­ese banks paid off - $764.5 mil­lion

• Debts to the In­ter­na­tion­al Bank for Re­con­struc­tion and De­vel­op­ment paid off - $28.7 mil­lion

• $80.6 bil­lion in pub­lic debt charges - An av­er­age of $10 bil­lion a year.

Hold­ers of Ex­ter­nal Debt

2023

IADB - $4.1 bil­lion

CDB - $89.6 mil­lion

EIB - $11.96 mil­lion

Notes and Bonds - $14.9 bil­lion

Chi­nese Banks - $442.3 mil­lion

29 For­eign Loans Tak­en Out

• 2016 - Two Loans

1. Deutsche Bank and FCB - US - TT$6.7 bil­lion (US$1 bil­lion) - US$1,000 mil­lion 4.5 per cent notes - Sup­port Pol­i­cy Based Loan - US$1 Bn 10-year bond in New York on Thurs­day, Ju­ly 28, 2016, mark­ing its first in­ter­na­tion­al bond is­sue in three years.

2. ING Bank NV - Eu­ros - $168.5 mil­lion - Loan to ac­quire Damen Naval As­sets.

• 2017- Four Loans

1. CAF - US$300 mil­lion - Loan to Sup­port Fis­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, im­prove tax ad­min­is­tra­tion, and man­age pub­lic debt.

2. IADB - US$25 mil­lion - Strength­en­ing of the Sin­gle Win­dow for Trade and Busi­ness Fa­cil­i­ta­tion.

3. IADB - US$48.4 mil­lion - Health Ser­vices Sup­port Pro­gramme - Aims to pre­vent and con­trol NCDs among adults and pre­vent and con­trol risk fac­tors among pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents by strength­en­ing the de­liv­ery of in­te­grat­ed pri­ma­ry care ser­vices; im­ple­ment­ing be­hav­iour change pro­grammes and poli­cies; en­sur­ing hu­man re­sources for health; and en­hanc­ing Health Fa­cil­i­ties In­vest­ment Man­age­ment.

• 2018 - Two loans

1. CAF - US$180 mil­lion - Part of a larg­er US$300 mil­lion loan aimed at sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment’s “Medi­um-term Fis­cal Con­sol­i­da­tion Strat­e­gy – Phase II

2. Ex­port & Im­port Chi­na - Yuan - $148 mil­lion - Pur­chase of one Mul­ti­pur­pose Ves­sel.

• 2019 - Three loans

1. CAF - US$120 mil­lion - Part of a larg­er US$300 mil­lion loan aimed at sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment’s “Medi­um-term Fis­cal Con­sol­i­da­tion Strat­e­gy.”

2. CAF - Eu­ros - $81.4 mil­lion - Pt Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

3. Uni­Cred­it Bank of Aus­tria - US$200 mil­lion - Road Con­struc­tion, Main­te­nance, Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Pro­gramme.

• 2020 - Nine loans

1. Ex­port Fi­nance and In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion - US$57.2 mil­lion - Par­tial fi­nanc­ing for the con­struc­tion and ac­qui­si­tion of two high-speed pas­sen­ger/car­go boats.

2. Ex­port Fi­nance and In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion - US$58.5 mil­lion - Par­tial fi­nanc­ing for the con­struc­tion and ac­qui­si­tion of Two high-speed pas­sen­ger/car­go boats.

3. CAF - US$100 mil­lion - COVID-19 - An­ti—Cyclic Sup­port for the COVID–19 Emer­gency

4. CAF - US$200 mil­lion - Sec­tor-wide pro­gramme for road con­struc­tion, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and main­te­nance pro­gramme.

5. Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Chi­na - Yuan - $688.4 mil­lion - New In­dus­tri­al Park at the Phoenix Park Project.

6. Ex­port Fi­nance and In­sur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion - US$91.5 mil­lion - Fi­nanc­ing of the con­struc­tion and ac­qui­si­tion of two Cape-class pa­trol boats and the ap­point­ment of a process agent.

7. Uni­Cred­it Bank of Aus­tria - Eu­ros - $106 mil­lion - The Turnkey con­struc­tion of the new San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal.

8. US Bank Cor­po­rate Trust Ser­vices - US$500 mil­lion - Ex­ter­nal Le­gal Coun­sel.

9. IADB - US$100 mil­lion - Strength­en Fis­cal & Man­age­ment in Re­sponse to the Health & Eco­nom­ic Cri­sis Caused by COVID-19.

• 2021 - Four loans

1. IADB - US$32.5 mil­lion - Ur­ban Up­grad­ing and Re­vi­tal­iza­tion Pro­gramme.

2. IADB - US$17.5 mil­lion - Ur­ban Up­grad­ing and Re­vi­tal­iza­tion Pro­gramme.

3. IADB - US$15.7 mil­lion - Re­for­mu­la­tion of four loans for The vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tion af­fect­ed by COVID-19.

4. CAF - US$50 mil­lion - COVID 19 San­i­tary Cri­sis Loan. Ur­ban Up­grad­ing and Re­vi­tal­iza­tion Pro­gramme - to con­tribute to the im­prove­ment of the qual­i­ty of the ur­ban built en­vi­ron­ment. The spe­cif­ic ob­jec­tives are to: (i) im­prove the hab­it­abil­i­ty in ur­ban set­tle­ments on State-owned lands; (ii) im­prove the phys­i­cal qual­i­ty and eco­nom­ic per­for­mance of ur­ban pub­lic spaces; (iii) en­hance hous­ing con­di­tions for low-in­come house­holds; and (iv) strength­en the ca­pac­i­ty of sup­ply-side stake­hold­ers to sat­is­fy ef­fec­tive hous­ing de­mand.

• 2022 - One loan

1. CAF - US$175 mil­lion - COVID 19 San­i­tary Cri­sis Loan.

• 2023 - Four loans

1. CAF - US$120 mil­lion - Swap to Sup­port the Im­ple­men­ta­tion of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion & Dig­i­tal In­clu­sion Strat­e­gy in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

2. CAF - US$40 mil­lion - Trinidad Drainage and Flood Mit­i­ga­tion Pro­gramme.

3. IADB - US$80 mil­lion - Na­tion­al Wa­ter Sec­tor Trans­for­ma­tion Pro­gramme.

4. GORTT US - US$560 mil­lion - Bond on the In­ter­na­tion­al Cap­i­tal Mar­ket.