KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors Mar­lene Attzs and Fran­cis Lewis are warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go could face mount­ing fis­cal pres­sures, cit­ing ris­ing debt, per­sis­tent for­eign ex­change short­ages and weak eco­nom­ic growth.

The con­cerns were raised dur­ing de­bate on the Fi­nance (Sup­ple­men­ta­tion and Vari­a­tion of Ap­pro­pri­a­tions) Bill, 2026, in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion, Attzs warned that greater fi­nan­cial prob­lems could be on the hori­zon if the Gov­ern­ment keeps bor­row­ing to cov­er day-to-day ex­pens­es in­stead of in­vest­ing in long-term eco­nom­ic growth.

She said such prac­tices could in­crease the debt bur­den for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions if not matched by in­vest­ment in long-term pro­duc­tive growth.

“As we move to­wards ap­prov­ing this ad­di­tion­al es­ti­mat­ed $3 bil­lion in ex­pen­di­ture, it is to be fi­nanced through fur­ther bor­row­ing. And I think it is there­fore rea­son­able for us to ask not on­ly how much are we spend­ing to­day, but how these de­ci­sions to have ad­di­tion­al ex­pen­di­tures, but ex­pen­di­tures fi­nanced through bor­row­ing, how these de­ci­sions will af­fect the debt bur­den that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions will have to in­her­it and will have to bear.

"The ques­tion be­fore us is whether we are bor­row­ing pri­mar­i­ly to bridge a tem­po­rary gap, or whether we are in­creas­ing­ly bor­row­ing to fi­nance re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, and I think that's an im­por­tant dis­tinc­tion for fis­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

She al­so high­light­ed that most of the ad­di­tion­al spend­ing was di­rect­ed to­ward re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture rather than de­vel­op­ment projects.

Attzs added that high­er en­er­gy prices due to the cur­rent war in the Mid­dle East may tem­porar­i­ly im­prove rev­enues, but al­so in­crease fis­cal pres­sures, in­clud­ing sub­sidy oblig­a­tions.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Lewis de­scribed the econ­o­my as “sta­ble but con­strained,” warn­ing that weak growth re­mains a ma­jor chal­lenge for long-term de­vel­op­ment.

He said the coun­try risks strug­gling to gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment and im­prove liv­ing stan­dards if growth does not ac­cel­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

He said low eco­nom­ic growth, es­ti­mat­ed at around one per cent, is in­suf­fi­cient to gen­er­ate mean­ing­ful in­vest­ment or job cre­ation.

As such, he said the com­pet­i­tive­ness chal­lenges con­tin­ue to weigh on the pri­vate sec­tor.

He al­so said for­eign ex­change short­ages re­main a key con­straint on eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

Lewis said, “Few is­sues af­fect busi­ness more con­sis­tent­ly than ac­cess to for­eign cur­ren­cy. For­eign ex­change short­ages act as a hid­den tax on eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. It dis­cour­ages in­vest­ment, in­creas­es un­cer­tain­ty, and it dis­torts de­ci­sion-mak­ing. The sys­tem can­not be, the so­lu­tion can­not be mere­ly to de­fend the ex­ist­ing sys­tem or tweak it. The so­lu­tion has to be how to ex­pand the coun­try's ca­pac­i­ty to earn for­eign ex­change. That means stronger ex­ports, greater in­vest­ment flows, im­proved com­pet­i­tive­ness and broad­er pro­duc­tive, a broad­er pro­duc­tive base.” 

He added that the econ­o­my’s re­liance on the en­er­gy sec­tor con­tin­ues to lim­it di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and leaves the coun­try ex­posed to ex­ter­nal shocks.

De­spite the con­cerns, both sen­a­tors ac­knowl­edged ar­eas of fis­cal im­prove­ment, in­clud­ing stronger-than-ex­pect­ed rev­enue per­for­mance sup­port­ed by high­er en­er­gy prices and new rev­enue mea­sures.

They al­so point­ed to im­prove­ments in pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery through dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives and re­cent pos­i­tive sig­nals from in­ter­na­tion­al rat­ing agen­cies.