Richard Lord

The Gov­ern­ment has set­tled 66 out of 75 col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments for work­ers at a cost of some $8 bil­lion.

This was re­vealed by Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

He was con­tribut­ing to de­bate on leg­is­la­tion to in­crease the 2012/13 na­tion­al bud­get by more than $2.8 bil­lion.

Tewarie al­so said there were sev­er­al in­vest­ments which were about to take place in the coun­try to im­prove T&T's eco­nom­ic for­tunes short­ly.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor He­len Dray­ton, in her con­tri­bu­tion, ex­pressed con­cern with the lev­el of spend­ing by the Gov­ern­ment. She said the Gov­ern­ment was us­ing the Trea­sury like it was an ATM.

She al­so rec­om­mend­ed that Gov­ern­ment should "scru­ti­nise the ODPM to avoid a dis­as­ter."

She told leg­is­la­tors she could not un­der­stand why "four months be­fore the end of a fis­cal year and way in­to the rainy and hur­ri­cane sea­son, you'd be ask­ing for mil­lions to strength­en dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness."

She said de­vel­op­ments speaks to the need for prop­er plan­ning."

Mean­while, Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath leaves on Mon­day for talks with of­fi­cials in Ja­maica over the trade re­la­tions with that coun­try.

He said he would al­so dis­cuss mat­ters re­lat­ing to Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed in Ja­maica.

Bharath spoke with re­porters in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

He said there was no trade war be­tween the two coun­tries.