SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Se­nior Re­porter

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says be­tween 2015 and 2025, over­seas trav­el by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley cost tax­pay­ers $32.5 mil­lion.

Sobers was mak­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the 2027 Bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

He joined the de­bate af­ter for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of hop­ing that the war be­tween the Unit­ed States and Iran will con­tin­ue so glob­al oil prices will re­main high.

Sobers rub­bished that, in­stead ac­cus­ing the Op­po­si­tion PNM of be­ing ob­sessed with US Re­pub­li­can gov­ern­ment.

“This ob­ses­sion with the Re­pub­li­can Par­ty and with the cur­rent pres­i­dent who sits square­ly and strong­ly in the White House, they have a dif­fi­cul­ty with the Re­pub­li­can Par­ty. And we saw, Mr Speak­er, when we warned them time and time again, keep your mouth out of US pol­i­tics,” Sobers said.

He ad­vised Im­bert to “mind your busi­ness,” say­ing the PNM would stay in Op­po­si­tion if its mem­bers do not stop look­ing out­ward­ly at the cur­rent US gov­ern­ment.

He said since the UNC took of­fice, he has had to ac­count for all his for­eign trav­el.

“For the ten years that the for­mer, for­mer prime min­is­ter was in of­fice, his over­seas trav­el amount­ed to a whop­ping $32,525,134.16,” Sobers said.

He ques­tioned whether tax­pay­ers had seen val­ue for mon­ey on those trips, say­ing no tech­nocrats or pub­lic ser­vants were present dur­ing mul­ti­ple trips to ad­vance the coun­try’s in­ter­ests.

Sobers said when the UNC-led Gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice, it had to re­pair re­la­tion­ships dam­aged by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“As a com­rade of mine would say in Guyana, ‘care­less­ly danc­ing through the rain­drops’, Mr Speak­er, that is what was go­ing on on the oth­er side and now when we got in­to ad­min­is­tra­tion with a clear, cor­rect, af­fir­ma­tive po­si­tion by the mem­ber of Siparia, man­dates have been giv­en to all of us on this side to cor­rect those mis­takes, de­lib­er­ate mis­takes, de­lib­er­ate bad per­for­mance made by all of the oth­er mem­bers on that side,” Sobers said.

Ear­li­er in the de­bate, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of bank­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture on the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Unit­ed States and Iran war.

Im­bert al­so knocked Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, say­ing Tan­coo failed to in­clude a re­view of the econ­o­my in his bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

He said it was the first time in his al­most 40 years in pol­i­tics that a fi­nance min­is­ter has failed to do so.

“The min­is­ter was con­spic­u­ous­ly silent; he avoid­ed talk­ing about it, he ran from it, he hid it... he didn’t want any­body to know, but thank God they still have a few hon­est pub­lic ser­vants in the Min­istry of Fi­nance who put the cor­rect fig­ures in the re­view,” Im­bert said.

He said the re­view of the econ­o­my shows re­al GDP is pro­ject­ed to de­crease by 2.2 per cent.

Im­bert said en­er­gy is ex­pect­ed to drop by 6.6 per cent, non-en­er­gy by .7 per cent, trade and re­pairs by 4.3 per cent, pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion by 3.4 per cent, con­struc­tion by 2.7 per cent, elec­tric­i­ty and gas by 6.6 per cent, ac­com­mo­da­tion and food ser­vices by 5.1 per cent, in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion by 3.5 per cent and pe­tro­le­um and chem­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing by 13.2 per cent.

“Eco­nom­ic out­put in our petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor in fis­cal 2026 ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Fi­nance own doc­u­ment, de­clined by 19.8 per cent and pe­tro­le­um and gas dis­tri­b­u­tion de­clined by 7.7 per cent.”

Im­bert said there were de­clines in many oth­er sec­tors, in­clud­ing busi­ness bor­row­ing, agri­cul­ture and ve­hi­cle sales, as well as an in­crease in youth un­em­ploy­ment.

“Af­ter Nu­trien shut­down, Pro­man cur­tail­ment etc etc etc, you had a com­plete col­lapse of the econ­o­my and em­ploy­ment,” Im­bert said.

The Diego Mar­tin North/East MP said if not for con­flict be­tween the US and Iran, Tan­coo’s bud­get would have a deficit of be­tween twelve to fif­teen bil­lion dol­lars.

“The gov­ern­ment would not be able to pay salaries, it would not be able to pay bills and go­ing for­ward Mr Speak­er,” Im­bert said.

He said Tan­coo con­tin­ues to base his bud­get on high­er oil prices.

“The gov­ern­ment once again is bank­ing on the war in Iran con­tin­u­ing for the next 12 months, be­cause when you look at the pro­jec­tions in terms of oil prices, Mr Speak­er, the Gov­ern­ment is once again bank­ing on an ex­treme­ly high oil price of $77,” Im­bert said.

He said the Gov­ern­ment’s spend­ing, with in­creased re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, is not sus­tain­able.

“And now go­ing for­ward, they’re hop­ing that the US and Iran will con­tin­ue to be at war. The Strait of Hor­muz will con­tin­ue to be block­ad­ed, that oil prices will re­main el­e­vat­ed, that Iran will con­tin­ue to at­tack Sau­di Ara­bia and Kuwait.”

But, Im­bert said, the US gov­ern­ment was al­ready feel­ing the pres­sure from its cit­i­zens on the ris­ing cost of liv­ing.

“I doubt that the Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment is go­ing to con­tin­ue with that.”