Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Mo­ments af­ter 32 mem­bers of her gov­ern­ment were sworn in at Pres­i­dent’s House—and with most of her Cab­i­net seat­ed be­hind her—Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that her first pri­or­i­ty would be to dis­man­tle the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA).

Af­ter de­clar­ing that it is time for “boots on the ground” and for her gov­ern­ment to “get to work”, Per­sad-Bisses­sar then an­nounced, “We have to re­form a lot of pieces of leg­is­la­tion, and the ar­eas of pri­or­i­ty will be one, to re­peal the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act,” she said to cheers from the crowd.

The leg­isla­tive frame­work gov­ern­ing the TTRA was passed by an act of Par­lia­ment in De­cem­ber 2021. The TTRA was the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion’s at­tempt to re­struc­ture the State’s tax col­lec­tion regime and was in­tend­ed to re­place the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED). And it was tout­ed as a ma­jor as­set in gen­er­at­ing funds for the State.

In ad­dress­ing the Par­lia­ment on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2023, then fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said, “With an es­ti­mat­ed do­mes­tic tax gap of up to $10 bil­lion, the Gov­ern­ment, through the TTRA, is ac­tive­ly seek­ing to ad­dress this fis­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and close the tax gap by im­prov­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fi­ca­cy of the coun­try’s rev­enue col­lec­tion.”

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has pre­vi­ous­ly said it was against the TTRA, un­der­scor­ing that it will lead to se­vere job loss­es and put too much con­trol in­to the hands of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), now a ma­jor al­ly of the gov­ern­ment, chal­lenged the TTRA’s im­ple­men­ta­tion all the way to the Privy Coun­cil. How­ev­er, that mat­ter was dis­missed in Sep­tem­ber 2024.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar told mem­bers of the me­dia yes­ter­day that a ma­jor mis­sion of this new Gov­ern­ment would be to find new rev­enue streams.

Asked how that would be done with­out the TTRA, new Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said, “There are oth­er streams of rev­enue avail­able, but be­fore I com­ment on what we are go­ing to do, I want to take an as­sess­ment of what is there, and based on what is there, we will plan our way for­ward.”

Pressed on why the Gov­ern­ment is re­ject­ing the TTRA out­right­ly, Tan­coo said, “Let the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al deal with that.”

TTRA chair­man: Too ear­ly to com­ment on PM’s state­ment

Con­tact­ed last night, chair­man of TTRA Nigel Ed­wards told the Sun­day Guardian that it was pre­ma­ture to say any­thing.

“Clear­ly the PM has spo­ken, and we will need to ar­tic­u­late her po­si­tion a lit­tle bit fur­ther. I re­al­ly don’t want to pre­empt where the PM is go­ing. I would re­al­ly like to give the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and PM the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have their say be­fore I make any oth­er state­ments.” Ed­wards could not say how much tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey has been pumped in­to the TTRA so far.

Asked if the an­nounce­ment came as a sur­prise to him, Ed­wards said, “I think what the PM has said is not in­con­sis­tent with what was said in the ear­ly part of the cam­paign.”

Tan­coo to find out state of Trea­sury

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has al­so been man­dat­ed to find out what is the state of the trea­sury, “be­fore we can run off to make sure we don’t just talk the talk”, she said.

“I can on­ly know that by Mon­day. My Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and Min­is­ter of Plan­ning will put their heads to­geth­er and let us see what we can do.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day, but he did not re­spond. Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son did not re­spond to mes­sages.

AG: Stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion com­ing this year

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the AG has been in­struct­ed to work with the Cab­i­net to im­ple­ment stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion.

This was a ma­jor man­i­festo promise by the UNC, which it be­lieves will bet­ter pro­tect cit­i­zens by giv­ing them the right to de­fend their lives and prop­er­ty against crim­i­nals.

In the Unit­ed States, such a law al­lows peo­ple to use dead­ly force to de­fend against vi­o­lent crimes.

Con­tin­u­ing her Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to com­bat crime, Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther an­nounced “home in­va­sion laws” will be com­ing and “the reg­u­la­tions that we would need to grant firearms to law-abid­ing cit­i­zens”.

AG Je­re­mie told re­porters that the leg­is­la­tion should be brought to the Par­lia­ment this year.

Mooni­lal head­ing to Grena­da to ex­plore oil and gas po­ten­tial

Turn­ing her at­ten­tion to the en­er­gy sec­tor, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “My Min­is­ter of En­er­gy (Dr Roodal Mooni­lal) has been man­dat­ed from day one; let us ex­plore the of­fer be­ing made by Guyana to bring gas to Trinidad and To­ba­go. Let us ex­plore as well ... Suri­name is al­so en­er­gy-pro­duc­ing. Again, we can part­ner with them.”

The Prime Min­is­ter then an­nounced what she called a “sur­prise”.

“I in­tend to send my Min­is­ter of En­er­gy to Grena­da be­cause I am be­ing told that Grena­da off­shore has more gas and oil than the Drag­on field,"

She asked those in at­ten­dance, "So shall we ex­plore that?”

Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter, the Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed that there are no fu­ture prospects of re­viv­ing the Drag­on gas deal, which she said was of­fi­cial­ly dead.

In April for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young con­firmed that the US had re­voked this coun­try’s li­cence to de­vel­op that gas field with Venezuela.

“We will be fool­ish to not look else­where,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “and we should have start­ed that search long ago; we should not have put every­thing in­to the drag­on gas.

"That is dead. They kept it alive for 10 years, and if you couldn’t do that in 10 years, you can­not do it now.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said there could al­so pos­si­bly be oil and gas in To­ba­go’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly had a con­ver­sa­tion with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, and while they spoke about the en­er­gy sec­tor, she said there were no dis­cus­sions about drag­on gas.

Guardian Me­dia then spoke with new En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodall, who said on Mon­day when he gets to work, he will put things in place for his trip to Grena­da.

He could not say how much gas is in Grena­da’s wa­ters.

“We will have to as­cer­tain the facts now from oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al sources and in­de­pen­dent sources.”

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Mooni­lal said all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the Drag­on gas field will be made pub­lic.

“As you know, all mat­ters per­tain­ing to the Drag­on deal are se­cret, and on Mon­day morn­ing we will un­rav­el all se­crets.”

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Young did not re­spond to mes­sages yes­ter­day.