Mick­ela Pan­day

Last Oc­to­ber, the Gov­ern­ment came to the coun­try with a clear mes­sage, dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions had to be made. New rev­enue mea­sures were nec­es­sary. New levies were nec­es­sary. New fees, du­ties and sur­charges were nec­es­sary. Cit­i­zens were told these mea­sures would strength­en the coun­try’s fi­nances and place Trinidad and To­ba­go on a more sus­tain­able fis­cal path.

The pub­lic was as­sured that these mea­sures formed part of a plan. Busi­ness­es, prop­er­ty own­ers and con­sumers were all ex­pect­ed to ab­sorb ad­di­tion­al costs in the in­ter­est of strength­en­ing the na­tion’s fi­nances. Whether peo­ple wel­comed those mea­sures or not, they were told the sac­ri­fices were nec­es­sary and to “hold strain.”

On Fri­day, the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment will re­turn to Par­lia­ment seek­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3 bil­lion in ad­di­tion­al ex­pen­di­ture.

That is why the coun­try de­serves an ex­pla­na­tion.

Mon­day, June 15th, Par­lia­ment will de­bate the Mid-Year Re­view and a Sup­ple­men­tary Ap­pro­pri­a­tion. In sim­ple terms, Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing ap­proval to spend bil­lions of dol­lars be­yond what was orig­i­nal­ly au­tho­rised in the na­tion­al bud­get.

The is­sue is not whether Gov­ern­ment has the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to do so. The is­sue is whether cit­i­zens have been giv­en a sat­is­fac­to­ry ex­pla­na­tion for why it has be­come nec­es­sary af­ter a bud­get that al­ready in­tro­duced sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue-rais­ing mea­sures.

When the Bud­get was pre­sent­ed, Gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced an As­set Levy on com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, a Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge, a Com­mer­cial and In­dus­tri­al Elec­tric­i­ty Sur­charge, in­creas­es in du­ties on al­co­hol and to­bac­co prod­ucts, high­er cus­toms-re­lat­ed charges and fees, en­vi­ron­men­tal tax­es and tougher penal­ties for il­le­gal lot­tery ac­tiv­i­ties. These mea­sures were pre­sent­ed as part of a strat­e­gy to strength­en rev­enue col­lec­tion and im­prove the coun­try’s fis­cal po­si­tion.

That is why the cen­tral ques­tion fac­ing the coun­try to­day is a sim­ple one: What changed?

If these mea­sures are per­form­ing as ex­pect­ed, why is ad­di­tion­al spend­ing re­quired? If rev­enues are not per­form­ing as ex­pect­ed, what ac­counts for the short­fall? If ma­jor ex­pen­di­ture oblig­a­tions were known when the bud­get was pre­pared, why were they not re­flect­ed in the orig­i­nal pro­jec­tions?

These are not par­ti­san ques­tions. They are rea­son­able ques­tions that tax­pay­ers should ask when­ev­er Gov­ern­ment re­turns seek­ing bil­lions more from the pub­lic purse.

In fact, this is not the first time the is­sue has arisen. In the Bud­get State­ment it­self, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance ac­knowl­edged that Gov­ern­ment had al­ready been re­quired to ap­pro­pri­ate an ad­di­tion­al $3.1 bil­lion dur­ing the Fis­cal 2025 Mid-Year Re­view to ad­dress ex­pen­di­ture pres­sures, in­clud­ing salary-re­lat­ed oblig­a­tions. Cit­i­zens are there­fore en­ti­tled to know why sig­nif­i­cant spend­ing pres­sures con­tin­ue to emerge and what Gov­ern­ment is do­ing to en­sure that sup­ple­men­tary ap­pro­pri­a­tions do not be­come a re­cur­ring fea­ture of pub­lic fi­nance.

Ac­cord­ing to state­ments made by the Prime Min­is­ter, much of the pro­posed ex­pen­di­ture will go to­wards salaries and wage-re­lat­ed oblig­a­tions. If that is the case, Gov­ern­ment should ex­plain the fig­ures clear­ly and in de­tail. Cit­i­zens de­serve to know how much is be­ing al­lo­cat­ed to salaries, how much re­lates to wage set­tle­ments and ar­rears and how much will be di­rect­ed to pro­grammes and projects.

Trans­paren­cy should not be viewed as a bur­den. It is the foun­da­tion of pub­lic trust. Be­hind every gov­ern­ment dol­lar is a cit­i­zen who worked for it, a busi­ness that earned it or a fam­i­ly that con­tributed it through tax­es, fees and charges.

While Par­lia­ment de­bates bil­lions, or­di­nary peo­ple are fo­cused on much small­er num­bers, the gro­cery bill, the rent, the mort­gage pay­ment, the elec­tric­i­ty bill, the cost of trans­porta­tion and the chal­lenge of mak­ing a salary stretch to the end of the month. Small busi­ness own­ers are try­ing to keep their doors open. Young peo­ple are try­ing to build a fu­ture. Fam­i­lies are try­ing to cre­ate sta­bil­i­ty in un­cer­tain eco­nom­ic times.

That is why cit­i­zens have a right to ask what they can ex­pect in re­turn for an­oth­er $3 bil­lion in ex­pen­di­ture. Will pub­lic ser­vices im­prove? Will health­care im­prove? Will com­mu­ni­ties be­come safer? Will eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties ex­pand? Will cit­i­zens see mea­sur­able re­sults from this ad­di­tion­al spend­ing?

Over the past year, cit­i­zens were asked to ac­cept new tax­es, new sur­charges, new du­ties, new fees and new levies be­cause Gov­ern­ment said they were nec­es­sary to strength­en the coun­try’s fi­nances.

Cit­i­zens did their part.

It is now Gov­ern­ment’s turn to do its part.

Cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to know whether the plan they were asked to sup­port is work­ing. If it is work­ing, why is an­oth­er $3 bil­lion need­ed? If it is not work­ing, what changes are be­ing made to en­sure that tax­pay­ers are not asked to shoul­der an ever-in­creas­ing bur­den with­out see­ing cor­re­spond­ing im­prove­ments in their dai­ly lives?

Too of­ten, gov­ern­ments fo­cus on ex­pen­di­ture while cit­i­zens fo­cus on out­comes. Gov­ern­ments talk about spend­ing. Cit­i­zens talk about whether roads are re­paired, whether hos­pi­tals func­tion ef­fi­cient­ly, whether com­mu­ni­ties are safer, whether jobs are avail­able and whether life is be­com­ing more af­ford­able. Those are the mea­sures by which the pub­lic judges suc­cess.

Be­fore Par­lia­ment ap­proves an­oth­er $3 bil­lion, the coun­try de­serves a clear ex­pla­na­tion of why the orig­i­nal bud­get was not enough, what has changed since then and what mea­sur­able ben­e­fits cit­i­zens can ex­pect to see as a re­sult.

Be­cause when peo­ple are asked to make sac­ri­fices, they are en­ti­tled to know whether those sac­ri­fices achieved what Gov­ern­ment promised they would.

Mick­ela Pan­day is Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law.