JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Imbert: PP govt spent $66b and counting...

by

20160125

Four min­istries have so far re­port­ed un­paid bills from the past PP's tenure to­talling $2.1 bil­lion, which to­geth­er with oth­er fig­ures would take its last 2015 Bud­get ex­pen­di­ture to $66 bil­lion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says.

"The (PP) gov­ern­ment spent about $66 bil­lion and we're still count­ing as the $2.1 bil­lion is on­ly from four min­istries, so who knows where this will reach in the fi­nal count," Im­bert added in the Sen­ate, yes­ter­day.

Im­bert de­tailed the sit­u­a­tion in re­sponse to a chal­lenge by UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark to give the fi­nal ex­pen­di­ture for the last PP bud­get. Both speak­ers were par­tic­i­pat­ing in a de­bate on a Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee re­port clos­ing the 2015 ac­counts in­clud­ing shift­ing $200 mil­lion in sav­ings from the En­er­gy Min­istry to Works for the Pt Fortin High­way and as­so­ci­at­ed is­sues.

Mark, ac­cus­ing the PNM of mis­rep­re­sent­ing the PP's per­for­mance, said de­spite the PNM's "ram­blings and neg­a­tive in­sin­u­a­tions" con­cern­ing the econ­o­my the re­port of shift­ing sav­ings of $200 mil­lion from the En­er­gy Min­istry to Works showed the PP had man­aged pru­dent­ly, fru­gal­ly and re­mained with­in the 2015 Bud­get al­lo­ca­tion amid the eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion and still got projects done.

He said while the PNM had ac­cused the PP of waste and mis­man­age­ment, the re­al­i­ty was oth­er­wise. Pro­ject­ing there had been sav­ings of be­tween $3 bil­lion and $5 bil­lion from the last $60 bil­lion bud­get, Mark called for Im­bert to give the fi­nal ex­pen­di­ture fig­ure.

Mark said the PP's projects were lost by re-en­gi­neer­ing by the fi­nance min­is­ter. "What a con job! Talk about square pegs in round holes!

The min­is­ter's job is a tall or­der, you need some­one who's up to the task. The PNM has short-changed the pub­lic with this min­is­ter."

Re­ply­ing, Im­bert said the last 2015 un­bud­get­ed ex­pen­di­ture was $59 bil­lion, not $55 bil­lion as Mark be­lieved. Im­bert said there had been a lot of off-bud­get ex­pen­di­ture in­com­ing, in­clud­ing bills not paid for 2015. He said the re­ports to­talling $2.1 bil­lion from the four min­istries would take the 2015 bud­get to $61 bil­lion.

Al­so, Im­bert said, the PP "maxed out" the Cen­tral Bank over­draft, told state agen­cies to bor­row ($4.7 bil­lion) and there had al­so been bor­row­ing by HDC ($750 mil­lion), Ude­cott ($1.2 bil­lion), Nid­co ($1.5 bil­lion), EF­CL ($285 mil­lion), EM­BD ($400 mil­lion and PTSC ($57 mil­lion). "All of this would take the bud­get to about $66 bil­lion."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored