The Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) ex­pects Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to in­tro­duce aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures in the up­com­ing bud­get.

Speak­ing fol­low­ing the open­ing of the In­dus­tri­al Court’s 2023 to 2024 law term yes­ter­day, OW­TU Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get warned cit­i­zens to brace for more tax­es.  

“We ex­pect more pres­sure, more prob­lems, more suf­fer­ing to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, prop­er­ty tax and so on, in­creased re­tire­ment age, in­creased fu­el price, we ex­pect all of those things,” he said.

Ro­get al­so lament­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to re­duce the cost of fu­el when glob­al en­er­gy prices fell. He said this would have in­creased the amount of dis­pos­able in­come in cit­i­zens’ pock­ets.  

“As the price of oil fell, what should have hap­pened is that the price of fu­el at the pumps should have fall­en be­cause that is how it op­er­ates in ju­ris­dic­tions that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance point­ed us to as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for rais­ing the price of fu­el. But not so in sweet Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der Im­bert,” he said.

Ro­get said the union stands be­hind its un­so­licit­ed bid to ac­quire the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery backed by 100 per cent fi­nanc­ing and a trained work­force. He was re­spond­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who, at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence last Thurs­day, said there was no fea­si­ble of­fer.

Ro­get blamed this re­fusal to ac­cept its of­fer for the short­age in for­eign ex­change.

“We are in a sit­u­a­tion now with a short­age, a very, very chron­ic short­age of for­eign ex­change, and that is as a re­sult of us not earn­ing forex be­cause we do not have a re­fin­ery to sell prod­ucts on the for­eign mar­ket. In­stead, we have to use our scarce for­eign ex­change to pur­chase prod­ucts and sell back here for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.  

The OW­TU leader went on to im­ply that the pop­u­la­tion would voice their dis­sat­is­fac­tion at the polls which will be held by 2025.  

“It is when the work­ers recog­nise their worth, every­thing will change in this coun­try and that is com­ing soon,” he said.  

‘No re­lief’

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union (CWU) does not ex­pect the pop­u­la­tion to get any re­lief once the bud­get is read. Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Clyde El­der said cit­i­zens might be forced to once again tight­en their belts.

“This bud­get is not go­ing to be a work­er-friend­ly bud­get, sim­ply be­cause there is still at least one or two more bud­gets be­fore the elec­tion. So, this bud­get, I ex­pect, is go­ing to be a more tough bud­get than the last year may be,” he said.

El­der hopes the Gov­ern­ment pri­ori­tis­es health care, roads, se­cu­ri­ty, and ed­u­ca­tion. He al­so urged Im­bert to in­crease the min­i­mum wage, which cur­rent­ly stands at $17.50.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) Michael An­nisette said he doubt­ed there would be any con­sid­er­a­tion of its “crit­i­cal pro­pos­als” in the bud­get.

He said he “has an is­sue with bud­gets” af­ter pre­vi­ous­ly mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for em­ploy­ment gen­er­a­tion, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my, and de­vel­op­ing the mar­itime sec­tor, all of which have not been im­ple­ment­ed.

“Why should I go to dis­cuss a bud­get if the Gov­ern­ment, while they talk about con­sul­ta­tion, is not gen­uine in the sense that they have a fix­a­tion in terms of where they want to go and I haven’t seen any­one be­ing able to change their think­ing and their minds,” he said.

An­nisette said the bud­get should be peo­ple-cen­tred with at­ten­tion placed on re­duc­ing pover­ty, in­come in­equal­i­ty, and wealth in­equal­i­ty.  

He once again de­nounced the pro­pos­al for a four per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees over four years.

“I will con­tin­ue to say no to the four per cent over four years be­cause it does not ad­dress the so­cial is­sues and the fi­nan­cial is­sues that are af­fect­ing gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

An­nisette stat­ed that the gov­ern­ment should re­con­sid­er that po­si­tion since the pri­vate sec­tor of­fered around ten per cent over the same pe­ri­od.