Raphael John-Lall

Wen­dell Moses, ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing con­sul­tant of the Cen­tral Fi­nance Fa­cil­i­ty (CFF), be­lieves that the na­tion­al bud­get for fis­cal year 2026 will gen­er­ate good gov­er­nance and eco­nom­ic growth, which will ben­e­fit the cred­it union move­ment.

“The bud­get’s five strate­gic pil­lars: restor­ing fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty, un­lock­ing in­vest­ment and jobs, com­mer­cial­is­ing pub­lic as­sets, mod­ernising in­fra­struc­ture and dig­i­tal ser­vices, and em­pow­er­ing peo­ple through so­cial in­vest­ment sig­nals an in­tent to re­cal­i­brate both gov­er­nance and growth,” he said.

He added that in syn­the­sis­ing the bud­get’s wide-rang­ing mea­sures, three im­per­a­tives emerge for the co­op­er­a­tive move­ment: align­ment with na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties, mod­ernising op­er­a­tions, and deep­en­ing ad­vo­ca­cy and part­ner­ships.

“Across T&T, cred­it unions al­ready man­age over $13 bil­lion in as­sets and serve more than 600,000 mem­bers, a base large enough to in­flu­ence na­tion­al out­comes if strate­gi­cal­ly aligned. Har­ness­ing that scale for en­tre­pre­neur­ship, green projects, and dig­i­tal in­clu­sion would demon­strate the co­op­er­a­tive sec­tor’s un­tapped po­ten­tial as a de­vel­op­men­tal part­ner,” said Moses.

He gave these views in a post-bud­get state­ment the CFF sent the Busi­ness Guardian on Wednes­day as part of its post-bud­get Thought Lead­er­ship Se­ries.

Ac­cord­ing to its web­site, the CFF does not serve in­di­vid­u­als di­rect­ly, a role ful­filled by cred­it unions,but it was in­stead es­tab­lished to serve the cred­it union in­dus­try by pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vest­ments through pool­ing of re­sources to en­able high­er rates of re­turn.

The CFF al­so pro­vides liq­uid­i­ty (cred­it) sup­port to cred­it unions that are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing un­usu­al or un­ex­pect­ed liq­uid­i­ty short­falls; fa­cil­i­tates the mod­ernising of mem­bers’ ser­vices and as­sists them in be­com­ing sig­nif­i­cant play­ers in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor.

Moses said while the fis­cal deficit of $3.865 bil­lion which is 2.17 per­cent of Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) in­di­cates Gov­ern­ment’s in­tent of dis­ci­plined spend­ing, it al­so un­der­scores the lim­it­ed fis­cal space with­in which so­cial and de­vel­op­ment agen­das must op­er­ate.

“In­fla­tion re­mains mod­er­ate, but cost of liv­ing pres­sures are still acute for or­di­nary house­holds. New levies on prop­er­ty own­ers’ rental in­come and elec­tric­i­ty sur­charges for com­mer­cial users may in­crease op­er­at­ing costs that ul­ti­mate­ly reach con­sumers. Against this back­drop, the co­op­er­a­tive move­ment’s role in fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion and com­mu­ni­ty re­silience be­comes crit­i­cal.”

He point­ed to spe­cif­ic ini­tia­tives in the bud­get like the $1 re­duc­tion in su­per gaso­line and the re­moval of VAT on some food items and said these will be­come a full re­al­i­ty with the help of the cred­it union move­ment.

“For mem­bers, the re­duc­tion of su­per gaso­line by $1 per litre of­fers mar­gin­al re­lief, while the re­moval of VAT on ba­sic foods and agri­cul­tur­al in­puts can sta­bilise house­hold bud­gets. These mea­sures achieve their full po­ten­tial on­ly when fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, es­pe­cial­ly cred­it unions, help mem­bers to con­vert short-term re­lief in­to long-term sav­ings and as­set build­ing be­hav­iour.”

Turn­ing point in­to fi­nan­cial em­pow­er­ment

Moses gave de­tails about how the cred­it union move­ment can cre­ate wealth for its mem­bers in light of the mea­sures an­nounced in the new bud­get.

The Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund (NIF) bond and the pro­pos­al to cre­at a state-spon­sored Re­al Es­tate In­vest­ment Trust (RE­IT) cre­ate ac­ces­si­ble, div­i­dend-bear­ing in­vest­ment ve­hi­cles. Cred­it unions can act as ag­gre­ga­tors, pool­ing mem­ber par­tic­i­pa­tion in these se­cu­ri­ties and of­fer­ing co-brand­ed “Wealth Builder” prod­ucts that de­moc­ra­tise in­vest­ment.

Sup­port for Man­u­fac­tur­ing and SMEs, in­clud­ing the new Ex­port Acad­e­my and Ex­im­bank for­eign-cur­ren­cy fa­cil­i­ties, aligns per­fect­ly with co­op­er­a­tive fi­nanc­ing. Cred­it unions in­di­vid­u­al­ly or through the CFF’s Vir­tu­al In­vest­ment Pool can ex­tend tai­lored cred­it to SMEs us­ing gov­ern­ment in­cen­tives as risk-mit­i­ga­tion an­chors.

Green and re­new­able-en­er­gy projects, such as the 92-megawatt Brechin Cas­tle so­lar plant and the na­tion­al re­new­able-en­er­gy roadmap, in­vite co­op­er­a­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion. The CFF’s Eco-Mi­cro Pro­gramme and Green Fi­nance pi­lots al­ready po­si­tion cred­it unions to co-fi­nance small-scale so­lar, en­er­gy-ef­fi­cien­cy, and eco-hous­ing ini­tia­tives. The bud­get’s 15 per cent emis­sions-re­duc­tion goal by 2030 of­fers both a moral and fi­nan­cial case for scal­ing these ef­forts.

Af­ford­able hous­ing ini­tia­tives and First-Time Home­own­er Grants pro­vide a fur­ther en­try point. Cred­it unions can com­ple­ment these pro­grammes through mi­cro-mort­gages and home im­prove­ment loans en­sur­ing that co­op­er­a­tive fi­nance re­mains a prac­ti­cal chan­nel for shel­ter se­cu­ri­ty.

He said, “In short, wealth cre­ation for mem­bers no longer lies sole­ly in sav­ings and loans; it lies in strate­gic par­tic­i­pa­tion in the na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment port­fo­lio. When cred­it unions in­vest col­lec­tive­ly in pro­duc­tive sec­tors, mem­bers share di­rect­ly in the na­tion’s growth sto­ry.”

Mna­gaing ex­pens­es

Ac­com­pa­ny­ing the bud­get analy­sis state­ment was a me­dia re­lease from the CFF’s An­nu­al Post Bud­get Pan­el Dis­cus­sion held on Oc­to­ber 16, In­ter­na­tion­al Cred­it Union Day.

The vir­tu­al fo­rum, held un­der the theme “Build­ing Re­silience, Strength­en­ing Com­mu­ni­ties: A Co­op­er­a­tive Re­sponse to the 2025 Bud­get,” at­tract­ed more than 100 par­tic­i­pants from across the full spec­trum of the peo­ple’s sec­tor, in­clud­ing sec­ondary school stu­dents, study­ing for A-Lev­el Eco­nom­ics. At­ten­dees en­gaged the pan­el­lists on fis­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, so­cial de­vel­op­ment, and the role of cred­it unions and the co­op­er­a­tive move­ment in na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the me­dia re­lease, econ­o­mists, aca­d­e­mics, and fi­nan­cial an­a­lysts have ad­vised the Gov­ern­ment to man­age its ex­pens­es with an eye on in­come that is be­ing re­alised, while fo­cus­ing on di­ver­si­fy­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic base.

Pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus Patrick Wat­son, econ­o­mist and for­mer head of the Eco­nom­ics De­part­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), em­pha­sised that “bud­gets must be more than year­ly wish lists; they must be in­te­gral to a na­tion­al plan. Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is not op­tion­al—it’s ur­gent.”

UWI pro­fes­sor emeri­ta of Gen­der, So­cial Change and De­vel­op­ment, so­ci­ol­o­gist Rho­da Red­dock, who al­so spoke praised the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to bal­ance so­cial and eco­nom­ic pri­or­i­ties. She ex­pressed deep con­cern about the in­vis­i­bil­i­ty of so­cial de­vel­op­ment in the 2025 Bud­get.

Ac­cord­ing to Red­dock: “We can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in si­los. So­cial pol­i­cy must move be­yond cri­sis-re­sponse to ad­dress struc­tur­al in­equal­i­ty and re­store hu­man dig­ni­ty.”

An­oth­er speak­er, econ­o­mist and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Vish­nu Dhan­paul who briefly served as Fi­nance Min­is­ter un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion said the na­tion has a tight fis­cal space, with a TT$50 bil­lion over­draft at the Cen­tral Bank and de­clin­ing for­eign re­serves and he called for im­proved project ex­e­cu­tion un­der the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP), em­pha­sis­ing that “fis­cal re­form must now be about dis­ci­pline, not ex­pan­sion.”

Se­nior lec­tur­er and head, De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ics, Dr Daren Con­rad not­ed that glob­al un­cer­tain­ty, trade ten­sions and weak do­mes­tic de­mand have placed the coun­try in a vul­ner­a­ble po­si­tion.

He rec­om­mend­ed tran­si­tion­ing from en­er­gy-de­pen­dence to knowl­edge-based growth.

Fi­nal­ly, the Cen­tral Fi­nance Fa­cil­i­ty, through its vice pres­i­dent, Lyn­don By­er, re­it­er­at­ed its com­mit­ment to ad­vanc­ing fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, co­op­er­a­tive in­no­va­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment in re­sponse to na­tion­al eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.