PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

No sign of eco­nom­ic progress, or any sug­ges­tion that there is some sort of eco­nom­ic re­lief on the way.

That was Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sess­ment of the mid-year bud­get re­view pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day.

She want­ed to know how Im­bert planned to re­pay the ad­di­tion­al deficit that would be in­curred fromf the ad­di­tion­al $4 bil­lion re­quest­ed, es­pe­cial­ly as rev­enue re­turns have been low­er than ex­pect­ed.

"The rev­enue has fall­en. Se­ri­ous­ly fall­en, if my mem­o­ry serves me right. It's about $1 bil­lion less, so not so bad. Min­is­ter says it's not so bad, but I don't be­lieve him. It is very bad out there," Per­sad-Biss­esar said.

"When last did you go to the su­per­mar­ket, not to buy air con­di­tion­ing and a gen­er­a­tor, but went over there to buy food? When asked would you do it? Then you will know how bad it is for peo­ple.

"We talk about the TTPS, we talk about Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the of­fi­cers are many of­fi­cers. They're great of­fi­cers, but they are so se­ri­ous­ly low in morale be­cause their mon­ey can­not buy them the things they need to feed their fam­i­lies. And we see noth­ing here to help them with that."

Ac­cord­ing to es­ti­mates list­ed by the Op­po­si­tion Leader, the fis­cal deficit in­curred by the gov­ern­ment could in­crease to as much as $14 bil­lion.

"We are in a very bad place. We could run in­to a deficit. I would ask the Min­is­ter, how does the Min­is­ter in­tend to fi­nance that deficit? Whether it be the $6 bil­lion, whether it is the $14 bil­lion? How? Are you go­ing to bor­row more?" she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said while the Gov­ern­ment had re­quest­ed ad­di­tion­al fund­ing, there was noth­ing in the mid year re­view to ad­dress the con­cerns of av­er­age cit­i­zens who are be­ing ad­verse­ly im­pact­ed by is­sues cre­at­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

"The Min­is­ter spoke of the econ­o­my be­ing on the re­bound, but the re­al­i­ty is still be­low pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els and giv­en the eco­nom­ic pro­jec­tion this year, it will re­main be­low pre pan­dem­ic lev­els," she said.

She al­so won­dered about the im­pact of the planned pay­out of out­stand­ing VAT pay­ments un­der a bond arrange­ment.

" The Min­is­ter told us last week there was about $7.8 bil­lion in VAT re­funds that are owed to peo­ple it is their mon­ey. So how much out of that $7.8 bil­lion will be cov­ered in the cash pay­ments? How much will it be? Min­is­ter told us one to two bil­lion dol­lars of the re­funds owed will be paid in cash, so it means the bulk of it will be for peo­ple to take bonds," she said.