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Monday, February 24, 2025

Kamla to reply to Imbert’s budget today

by

143 days ago
20241004
Opposition leader Kamla Persad Bissessar speak to MPs and Senators in the Parliament Chamber ofter Monday’s budget presentation.

Opposition leader Kamla Persad Bissessar speak to MPs and Senators in the Parliament Chamber ofter Monday’s budget presentation.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Se­nior Politi­cial Re­porter

For the peo­ple who have been “aban­doned” by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

That’s how Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of­fi­cials have de­scribed the re­ply that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will de­liv­er to­day to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s 2025 Bud­get.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar will speak from 10 am. She has equal speak­ing time as Im­bert had on Mon­day, when he de­liv­ered his 178-page bud­get speech in five hours and 11 min­utes.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse on Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had la­belled the bud­get “a mul­ti-hour eu­lo­gy for the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s decade of de­struc­tion...a ten-year lega­cy of ban­dit­ry, bro­ken promis­es and be­tray­al.”

UNC of­fi­cials said in the cur­rent elec­tion year and this be­ing the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nal bud­get for the term, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s full-length re­ply will de­liv­er a pack­age high­ly fo­cused on plans for the coun­try and pub­lic which a UNC gov­ern­ment would favour. She had done the same in 2019 ahead of the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as head of a gov­ern­ment in wait­ing—as the UNC de­scribes it­self—is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er plans that will give heavy in­sight in­to her par­ty’s elec­tion man­i­festo.

Apart from her pro­nounce­ments on the $59.8 bil­lion bud­get, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has re­peat­ed­ly said that the Gov­ern­ment is “broke,” is ex­pect­ed to cri­tique Im­bert’s as­sess­ment of the econ­o­my and fi­nan­cial man­age­ment. She will dis­sect the ini­tia­tives he al­so an­nounced and of­fer UNC’s al­ter­na­tives.

She’s ex­pect­ed to fo­cus heav­i­ly on what Im­bert on Mon­day ad­mit­ted was the “one area of great­est in­tran­si­gent dif­fi­cul­ty that re­mains” and con­tin­ues to re­sist the Gov­ern­ment’s best ef­forts—crime.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s mantra since last year’s Bud­get has been that there is no pros­per­i­ty with­out se­cu­ri­ty.

$B cut in Wasa per­son­nel fund­ing; cor­po­ra­tions get­ting prop­er­ty tax

In con­tin­u­ing Bud­get de­bate, Op­po­si­tion speak­ers are al­so ex­pect­ed to talk about the $182,984,745 cut in WASA’s per­son­nel ex­pen­di­ture al­lo­ca­tion for 2025.

This is in­di­cat­ed in the Draft Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue and Ex­pen­di­ture for Statu­to­ry Boards and sim­i­lar bod­ies re­port. This was among Bud­get 2025 doc­u­ments pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day.

The sum­ma­ry for WASA’s per­son­nel ex­pen­di­ture gave the es­ti­mate for 2024 as $3.5 bil­lion. The es­ti­mate for 2025 is $3.3 bil­lion. Salaries, wages, al­lowances and over­time lev­els are all low­er for 2025 than 2024.

The re­port al­so con­firmed that the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions will all re­ceive prop­er­ty tax sums out of the $125 mil­lion in prop­er­ty tax to be col­lect­ed by the Gov­ern­ment in 2025.

For 2025, the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry will be de­creas­ing trans­fers to nine of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions—PoS, San Fer­nan­do, Ari­ma, Ma­yaro, Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, San Juan/Laven­tille, Diego Mar­tin and Pe­nal/Debe.

San Juan/Laven­tille got the largest cut —by $4,030,000—from $178.7 mil­lion for 2024 to $174.7 mil­lion in 2025.

The min­istry will al­so in­crease trans­fers to five cor­po­ra­tions—Point Fortin, Ch­agua­nas, San­gre Grande, Siparia and Princes Town. Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro’s al­lo­ca­tion re­mains the same.

All cor­po­ra­tions will al­so re­ceive re­duced 2025 de­vel­op­ment fund­ing, rang­ing from a max­i­mum of $5 mil­lion less to $1 mil­lion less.

Among the prop­er­ty tax amounts to be al­lo­cat­ed to cor­po­ra­tions in 2025, Ch­agua­nas and Diego Mar­tin cor­po­ra­tions will get the largest - $11.5 mil­lion each.

Ari­ma, Point Fortin, San­gre Grande, Ma­yaro, Siparia and Princes Town cor­po­ra­tions will get the low­est—$7.150 mil­lion each. The re­port list­ed prop­er­ty tax sums for the fol­low­ing: PoS ($7.2m); San Fer­nan­do ($9.8m); Ari­ma ($7.1m); Point Fortin ($7.1m); Ch­agua­nas ($11.5m); Diego Mar­tin $11.5m); San Juan/Laven­tille ($9.8m); Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co $11.1m); San­gre Grande ($7.150m) Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro ($11.2m); Ma­yaro- Rio Claro ($7.150m), Siparia ($7.150m); Pe­nal/Debe ($9.8m); Princes Town ($7.150m).

Al­lo­ca­tions for the op­er­a­tion of dis­trict of­fices for coun­cil­lors re­main the same re­spec­tive­ly as the al­lo­ca­tions for 2024. There had been is­sues with rental pay­ments in the past in some UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions.


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