RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares its first bud­get next month, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has pre­dict­ed the Gov­ern­ment will not have enough mon­ey to ful­fil its cam­paign promis­es. Al­though he ex­pects a bal­anced bud­get, there will be no re­duc­tion of pub­lic debt or back pay to pub­lic ser­vants, which could run in­to “20 to 30 bil­lion dol­lars”.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence fol­low­ing the PNM’s gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing held at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre yes­ter­day, Im­bert said he had heard the Gov­ern­ment will be pre­sent­ing a $15-20 bil­lion deficit bud­get.

He not­ed that a deficit bud­get will like­ly lead to ris­ing pub­lic debt.

“It’s a deficit bud­get. I’m hear­ing it could be $15 bil­lion, could be $20 bil­lion. If it is in that range, it means our debt is go­ing to in­crease sig­nif­i­cant­ly. It’s not good for us. I thought they had all the an­swers and were go­ing to bal­ance the bud­get, but we wait and see,” he said.

“My un­der­stand­ing is that the huge deficit doesn’t take in­to ac­count all the huge promis­es, like the 10 per cent. That runs in­to bil­lions, an­oth­er two or three bil­lion per year, and an­oth­er 20 or 30 bil­lion dol­lars in back pay.

“That 15 bil­lion dol­lar deficit that I’m hear­ing about, hope­ful­ly it’s not true, doesn’t in­clude back pay on wage in­creas­es. It’s not a good thing. Let’s hope the ru­mours are un­true.”

Iron­i­cal­ly, un­der Im­bert’s own tenure as Fi­nance Min­is­ter, T&T’s to­tal gen­er­al gov­ern­ment debt in 2024 was es­ti­mat­ed at $143.31 bil­lion, up from $141.55 bil­lion in 2023.

Last week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that the 2025/2026 Bud­get will be a deficit, with ex­pen­di­tures ex­pect­ed to ex­ceed rev­enue. She in­di­cat­ed that the deficit may not be as high as some ex­pect, but she did not pro­vide spe­cif­ic fig­ures.

The fi­nal deficit fig­ure will be pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment when the bud­get is read in ear­ly Oc­to­ber.

Mean­while, PNM Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of Pol­i­cy San­jiv Bood­hu raised con­cerns about re­cent dis­missals in the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) and oth­er state em­ploy­ment ini­tia­tives.

He said the pro­grammes pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing sin­gle par­ents.

Bood­hu said af­fect­ed work­ers have not re­ceived com­pen­sa­tion, and le­gal steps were be­ing con­sid­ered.

He added that the scale of job loss­es could have wider ef­fects.

“We are near­ing 60,000 peo­ple who have lost their jobs. What is hap­pen­ing to the small busi­ness own­ers, the cin­e­ma own­ers, and small food ven­dors? What’s hap­pen­ing to the mar­ket ven­dors? How are they go­ing to earn a liv­ing now as a spin-off?” Bood­hu asked.

He said the par­ty will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the mat­ter.