KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get says the 2023 Na­tion­al Bud­get was an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the Gov­ern­ment im­pos­ing hard­ship on the pop­u­la­tion.Ad­dress­ing the OW­TU and Cred­it Union League’s Peo­ple Sec­tor Post-Bud­get Fo­rum on Tues­day, Ro­get said Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert at­tempt­ed a spin job to dupe peo­ple in­to think­ing the pro­posed fis­cal poli­cies were good for the coun­try.

How­ev­er, he said where the Gov­ern­ment gives with its thumb and in­dex fin­gers; it takes back with both hands.
Ro­get said those who would ben­e­fit enor­mous­ly from the bud­get are the oneper­centers, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment fi­nanciers and multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies (MNC).

Mean­while, he said the Gov­ern­ment calls on cit­i­zens a fifth time to pay more for fu­el in a pe­tro­le­um-pro­duc­ing coun­try with a re­fin­ery.

He said the in­crease in fu­el costs brings more oner­ous hard­ship on the peo­ple, re­gard­less of whether they own a ve­hi­cle.
“That is one of the most un­car­ing ac­tions by this Gov­ern­ment. It is as though we (Gov­ern­ment) put as much pres­sure on you be­cause you seem to be tak­ing this pres­sure,” Ro­get said.
Ro­get re­called Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s in­fa­mous “they have not ri­ot yet” state­ment from 2016, in which he in­creased gas three times. Im­bert jok­ing­ly re­marked that de­spite in­creas­es, peo­ple had not ri­ot­ed. Ro­get said peo­ple will now ex­pe­ri­ence in­creased trans­porta­tion and food costs in ad­di­tion to the 40 per cent in­fla­tion­ary in­crease. He warned that Prop­er­ty Tax was right around the cor­ner. 
While it will cost the man on the street more to live, Ro­get said Im­bert was gen­er­ous to the MNCs by re­duc­ing Sup­ple­men­tal Pe­tro­le­um Tax, and Pe­tro­le­um Prof­it Tax and of­fer­ing more con­ces­sions. There­fore, he said the trade union move­ment was vin­di­ca­tion in its stance that the Gov­ern­ment can do bet­ter for the coun­try.

He said it would en­sure work­ers get a bet­ter wage ad­just­ment, es­pe­cial­ly for the past years, and to counter the in­creas­ing cost of liv­ing.
“If there was ever any time that we feel vin­di­cat­ed as a trade union move­ment, it was right af­ter the read­ing of that bud­get yes­ter­day. Why? Be­cause we are firm in our con­vic­tion that the four per cent which was al­ready woe­ful­ly ten times, 100 times more now in­ad­e­quate af­ter the read­ing this bud­get.”
Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice Leader David Ab­du­lah said the bud­get showed no pic­ture of where the Gov­ern­ment want­ed to take the coun­try.

Ab­du­lah said the Gov­ern­ment, which has an over­all ne­olib­er­al vi­sion, of­fered no hope to those strug­gling that life would im­prove. He said there was noth­ing to sug­gest food prices would de­crease.
Ab­du­lah said the way the Gov­ern­ment deals with the is­sue of shar­ing the bur­den of ad­just­ment is one where the peo­ple who have to con­tin­ue to bear the brunt of the ad­just­ment are the work­ing peo­ple and the poor.

He said Im­bert claimed that Gov­ern­ment could on­ly af­ford a four per cent wage in­crease over six years, but this would not im­pact work­ers’ loss of pur­chas­ing pow­er which erod­ed in re­cent years.
“The four per cent is a clear in­di­ca­tion that work­ers have to con­tin­ue to bear the brunt of the bur­den.”
Econ­o­mist Dr Ke­ston Per­ry said the bud­get was not for­ward-look­ing and fo­cused on how the coun­try ar­rived at its cur­rent po­si­tion.

Per­ry said it came from one of the most cal­lous and ne­olib­er­al gov­ern­ments the coun­try ever saw.