Mr Speak­er, I am ho­n­oured to de­liv­er the UNC’s in­au­gur­al Bud­get.

On April 28, 2025, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, by their col­lec­tive ac­tion, gave this UNC Gov­ern­ment a re­sound­ing man­date to re­store good gov­er­nance, re­build our econ­o­my and im­prove the lives of every cit­i­zen across our beloved na­tion. They asked for sin­cer­i­ty and com­pas­sion in gov­ern­ment. They asked for a cred­i­ble plan to move Trinidad and To­ba­go for­ward. They asked for jobs, growth, pros­per­i­ty and so­cial peace. It is there­fore a pro­found priv­i­lege to present the 2026 Bud­get to this Ho­n­ourable House.

I ex­tend my heart­felt thanks to the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, our es­teemed Prime Min­is­ter, for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve and guide the fis­cal af­fairs of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Sin­cere thanks to the ded­i­cat­ed staff of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, my Cab­i­net col­leagues, the Min­istries and State Agen­cies and our part­ners in the pri­vate sec­tor and civ­il so­ci­ety. Most im­por­tant­ly, thanks to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go who par­tic­i­pat­ed in our bud­get con­sul­ta­tions: your voic­es have been heard. This Bud­get is a prod­uct of na­tion­al ef­fort, and it be­longs to all of us. Fi­nal­ly, thanks al­so to my con­stituents of Fyz­abad who vot­ed to give me my seat here in Par­lia­ment.

The en­tire coun­try knows that the PNM left our coun­try in fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties and eco­nom­ic ru­in. None of us could have guessed how far this coun­try had fall­en. Our as­sess­ment of the na­tion­al fis­cal po­si­tion has re­vealed the se­vere mag­ni­tude of our eco­nom­ic dis­tress and the re­sul­tant chal­lenges that lie ahead.

Deep struc­tur­al im­bal­ances that trap us in a low-growth cy­cle.

A bro­ken and de­mor­alised Tax Ad­min­is­tra­tion that pre­vents us from max­imis­ing our rev­enue po­ten­tial, per­sis­tent deficits.

Ris­ing debts.

An emp­ty trea­sury, in­fra­struc­ture in de­cay.

Es­ca­lat­ing crime and a pop­u­la­tion feel­ing very de­spon­dent are the lega­cy of the PNM’s decade of de­struc­tion.

For ten years, the Row­ley Ad­min­is­tra­tion presided over a col­lapse of law and or­der, al­low­ing crim­i­nals to roam free and shat­ter­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in the jus­tice sys­tem. Our chil­dren suf­fered as the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal was moth­balled out of spite, fi­nan­cial sup­port for chil­dren with spe­cial needs was cut, and GATE fund­ing was slashed. Our el­der­ly and chron­i­cal­ly ill were left with­out crit­i­cal CDAP med­ica­tions. Petrotrin was shut down reck­less­ly, jeop­ar­dis­ing fu­el se­cu­ri­ty and drain­ing our for­eign ex­change. And To­ba­go, our sis­ter isle, was aban­doned, its tourism sec­tor crip­pled by the sea bridge fi­as­co and PNM’s lais­sez-faire re­sponse to the worst oil spill in the is­land’s his­to­ry. This is the shame­ful lega­cy of al­most ten lost years.

The UNC Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion in the in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This 2026 Bud­get is a re­align­ment of ob­jec­tives to­wards a Trinidad and To­ba­go-first pol­i­cy. This bud­get is un­der­pinned by clar­i­ty of pur­pose and an­chored by five strate­gic pil­lars; each a crit­i­cal di­men­sion of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, de­signed to de­liv­er tan­gi­ble and sus­tain­able out­comes for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The First Pil­lar is restor­ing con­fi­dence and fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty.

The Sec­ond Pil­lar is Un­lock­ing Pro­duc­tive In­vest­ment and Jobs.

The Third Pil­lar is Com­mer­cial­iz­ing and Op­ti­miz­ing Pub­lic As­sets.

The Fourth Pil­lar is Mod­ernising In­fra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Dig­i­tal Ser­vices.

The Fifth Pil­lar is Pro­tect­ing the Peo­ple through So­cial In­vest­ment and Safe­ty Nets.

De­liv­ery Re­sults: First 150 Days

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing our vic­to­ry in the last elec­tion, we set out to work with ur­gency, dis­ci­pline and an un­shak­able com­mit­ment to de­liv­er. In our first six months, we moved swift­ly with tan­gi­ble ac­tions, re­al achieve­ments, and mea­sur­able im­pacts that have al­ready be­gun to change lives.

We de­liv­ered Jus­tice to For­mer Ca­roni Work­ers: While the for­mer Ad­min­is­tra­tion left them wait­ing for a decade, this Gov­ern­ment, in just 150 days, de­liv­ered land leas­es to more than 200 for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed work­ers. Promise made, promise kept!

We Se­cured Land­mark En­er­gy Deals: We signed a his­toric agree­ment with Exxon Mo­bil, which has the po­ten­tial to strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty. On Oc­to­ber 8, 2025, we ob­tained the Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cense from the Unit­ed States Trea­sury De­part­ment to pur­sue de­vel­op­ment of gas on the Drag­on Field. These ad­vance­ments will at­tract sig­nif­i­cant for­eign in­vest­ment, cre­ate jobs, and un­lock new rev­enue streams. Promise made, promise kept!

We took the Fight to Crim­i­nals: We cre­at­ed three spe­cial­ized Min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios: Jus­tice, De­fence and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, to pri­or­i­tize tar­get­ed at­ten­tion on zones of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty weak­ness. We have ap­point­ed a new Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice who is lead­ing an ag­gres­sive, co­or­di­nat­ed of­fen­sive against crime. The re­sults have been im­me­di­ate: mur­ders and vi­o­lent crimes are down by 40 per cent com­pared to last year. Promise made, promise kept!

We Pro­tect­ed Our Cit­i­zens from Floods: To cor­rect a decade of ne­glect, we launched a tar­get­ed Flood Mit­i­ga­tion and Shel­ter Man­age­ment ex­er­cise. With drain clear­ance, riv­er de­silt­ing, em­bank­ment re­in­force­ment, and road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion in flood-prone com­mu­ni­ties. Promise made, promise kept!

We kept Our Promise to Pub­lic Ser­vants by re­peal­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act and end­ing years of anx­i­ety for pub­lic of­fi­cers. Promise made, promise kept!

We ho­n­oured Our El­der­ly: We brought im­me­di­ate re­lief to 6,400 se­nior cit­i­zens, whose ap­pli­ca­tions had been aban­doned by the for­mer Ad­min­is­tra­tion. Promise made, promise kept!

We Put Stu­dents First: by com­plet­ing re­pairs to 279 schools un­der the ac­cel­er­at­ed School Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme and dis­trib­ut­ing 20,000 Book Grants ahead of the new school term, en­sur­ing safe class­rooms and stronger starts for our chil­dren. We are in the process of de­liv­er­ing 18,000 lap­tops to the Form 1 stu­dent pop­u­la­tion. Promise made, promise kept!

We Saved Chil­dren’s Lives: In June 2025, by amend­ing and strength­en­ing the Chil­dren’s Life Fund Act, we in­creased ac­cess to chil­dren bat­tling life-lim­it­ing ill­ness­es, in­clud­ing can­cer, blood dis­or­ders, heart and kid­ney dis­eases and more. Promise made, promise kept!

We are re­viv­ing Ne­glect­ed Fa­cil­i­ties: By ini­ti­at­ing the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and full op­er­a­tional­iza­tion of the aban­doned Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, the Na­tion­al Ther­a­peu­tic Re­source Cen­tre at Carlsen Field and the UWI Debe Cam­pus, left to rot by the last Gov­ern­ment. Promise made, promise kept!

We up­grad­ed Pub­lic Health­care by re­struc­tur­ing the CDAP Pro­gramme to in­clude new med­i­cines and launch­ing CDAP+ for spe­cialised drugs at af­ford­able, reg­u­lat­ed prices. Promise made, promise kept!

We stood up for Law-Abid­ing Cit­i­zens by bring­ing stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion via the Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025. This Bill is now out for pub­lic com­ment. Promise made, promise kept!

We halt­ed the Prop­er­ty Tax that cre­at­ed anx­i­ety for thou­sands of peo­ple, in­clud­ing the el­der­ly, re­tired and low-in­come. Promise made, promise kept!

We ho­n­oured the out­stand­ing wage set­tle­ment for NIB work­ers by im­me­di­ate­ly au­tho­ris­ing the pay­ments for the pe­ri­od 2014-2016, which the for­mer Gov­ern­ment in­ex­plic­a­bly with­held. This is the first step in en­gag­ing with the wider pub­lic ser­vice. Promise made, promise kept!

This is the record of a UNC Gov­ern­ment that per­forms. The first 150 days have proven one thing for sure: when you put the UNC in charge, progress is in­evitable.

Overview of the Do­mes­tic Econ­o­my

We were able to de­liv­er all these pos­i­tives in ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. Let me show you the dis­as­trous record of the last Gov­ern­ment.

Re­al GDP growth in Trinidad and To­ba­go dropped from 3.7 per cent in 2014 to 2.5 per cent in 2024.

Sim­i­lar­ly, dur­ing this pe­ri­od, the econ­o­my shrank by 17 per cent, with re­al GDP falling from $187 bil­lion in 2014 to $154.9 bil­lion in 2024.

The coun­try’s nom­i­nal GDP fell by 8.4 per cent be­tween 2014 and 2024, from $188.9 bil­lion to $173.0 bil­lion.

Over the last 10 years of PNM pol­i­cy, the amount of mon­ey owed by the coun­try to lo­cal and for­eign cred­i­tors in­creased by over 100 per cent: from $69.7 bil­lion or 37.1 per cent of GDP in 2014 to $140.7 bil­lion in 2024. This rep­re­sents 81.8 per cent of our GDP in 2024.

As a re­sult of the PNM’s fi­nan­cial bungling, 10.2 per cent of the coun­try’s rev­enue is now re­quired to ser­vice this debt. In 2014, this was a mere 4.2 per cent.

The for­mer Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the 10-day Min­is­ter of Fi­nance took our coun­try from a Stan­dard and Poor’s A-grade rat­ed econ­o­my in 2015 to a triple B mi­nus rat­ing in 2024. These two in­com­pe­tent in­di­vid­u­als erod­ed our rev­enue streams, squan­dered our re­serves, and un­der­mined con­fi­dence, lead­ing to sev­en down­grades in our rat­ings and out­look over nine years.

Over the same pe­ri­od, Moody’s In­vestor Ser­vices down­grad­ed us from in­vest­ment grade to junk sta­tus.

Un­der the PNM, 70,600 peo­ple lost their jobs. Ac­cord­ing to CSO, 636,800 peo­ple were em­ployed in 2014. By 2024, PNM had re­duced this to 566,200 peo­ple, with 70,600 pushed in­to un­em­ploy­ment by the PNM! To put this in­to per­spec­tive, the pop­u­la­tion of To­ba­go is about 60,000. So, the num­ber of per­sons who were put on the bread­line by the PNM, was sub­stan­tial­ly greater than the en­tire pop­u­la­tion of To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West com­bined! Vi­su­alise that!

Fur­ther, the Labour Force Par­tic­i­pa­tion Rate was 61.9 per cent just when we left of­fice. By March 2025, un­der the PNM, this had dropped to 54.3 per cent. This is of grave con­cern to this Gov­ern­ment, and as I speak, we are im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures to sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove job cre­ation. The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter will re­veal more on this dur­ing the de­bate.

Let’s look at our for­eign re­serves. At the end of cal­en­dar year 2014, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Net Of­fi­cial Re­serves stood at US$11,497.1 mil­lion, equiv­a­lent to 12.9 months of prospec­tive im­port cov­er. By March 2025, the Net Of­fi­cial Re­serves had de­clined sub­stan­tial­ly to US$5,272.1 mil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing 6.1 months of prospec­tive im­port cov­er.

This has been the de­struc­tive lega­cy of the wicked PNM over the last decade.

Re­duc­tion in the Price of Su­per Gas by $1

Mr Speak­er, you will re­call the glee on the face of the for­mer Min­is­ter of Fi­nance when he in­creased the price of fu­el over and over again. Let me re­mind you that the then Min­is­ter gloat­ed and sneered that, be­cause cit­i­zens had not ri­ot­ed yet, he could raise the price of gas again. And he did again and again and again. While cit­i­zens suf­fered in pain and frus­tra­tion as the cost of liv­ing sky­rock­et­ed, the PNM in Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued to pile pres­sure on the backs of those least able to bear it. That is the hate­ful con­duct from the for­mer gov­ern­ment that the peo­ple of this coun­try re­ject­ed.

Let me an­nounce the first mea­sure of this car­ing gov­ern­ment in this Bud­get that will ben­e­fit every sin­gle cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go. To­day, Mr Speak­er, look at the glee on my face as I make this an­nounce­ment. The pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment has been un­fair­ly over­charg­ing cit­i­zens for su­per gaso­line.

On be­half of this UNC Gov­ern­ment, I wish to an­nounce that in our bid to build eco­nom­ic fair­ness, the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­struct­ed that, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, the price of Su­per Gaso­line at the gas sta­tion pump be re­duced by $1 per litre. The av­er­age fu­el tank ca­pac­i­ty is about 50 litres – this means, every time you go to fill your tank you would be sav­ing $50 thanks to this re­duc­tion!

When UNC wins, Every­body wins!

Mr Speak­er, Non-En­er­gy Sec­tor growth is con­cen­trat­ed in 9 in­dus­tries, with par­tic­u­lar­ly no­table con­tri­bu­tions from Non-En­er­gy Man­u­fac­tur­ing sub-in­dus­tries, in­clud­ing:

Food, Bev­er­ages and To­bac­co Prod­ucts at 17.1 per cent.

Oth­er Man­u­fac­tured Prod­ucts at 4.3 per cent.

Trans­port and Stor­age at 5.6 per cent.

Trade and Re­pairs at 1.4 per cent.

Over the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to March 2025, re­al eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty at ba­sic prices con­tract­ed by 2.1 per cent. This down­turn was due to de­clines in both En­er­gy at 4.8 per cent and non-en­er­gy at 1.0 per cent and is fore­cast­ed to con­tin­ue un­til the end of 2025 due to on­go­ing geopo­lit­i­cal and trade ten­sions, as well as re­flect­ed in­sti­tu­tion­al weak­ness­es. The En­er­gy Sec­tor’s lack­lus­tre per­for­mance re­flects con­tin­ued de­clines in Nat­ur­al Gas Ex­plo­ration and Ex­trac­tion, tes­ti­fy­ing to the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment’s mediocre ef­forts in stim­u­lat­ing the sec­tor.

The pro­ject­ed growth in the Non-En­er­gy Sec­tor is dri­ven by slow­er, al­beit pos­i­tive, growth in Non-En­er­gy Man­u­fac­tur­ing, specif­i­cal­ly in Food, Bev­er­age, and To­bac­co Prod­ucts, as well as in Trade, Re­pairs, Trans­port, and Stor­age. Pos­i­tive mo­men­tum con­tin­ues in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Ac­com­mo­da­tion and Food Ser­vices, Re­al Es­tate, Con­struc­tion and Fi­nan­cial and In­sur­ance Ser­vices in­dus­tries.

Medi­um Term Eco­nom­ic Out­look

I turn to the Medi­um-Term Eco­nom­ic Out­look. The Gov­ern­ment has adopt­ed the UNC Man­i­festo 2025 as of­fi­cial Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy to guide the ini­tia­tives that will be im­ple­ment­ed in the next 5 years. As a re­sult, we ex­pect sta­bi­liza­tion and pos­i­tive growth in 2026, as we roll out our de­vel­op­ment plans and ini­ti­ate the re­build­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty have al­so been giv­en a sig­nif­i­cant boost with the re­cent Unit­ed States sup­port for the Drag­on Gas pro­pos­al. And we will be ex­plor­ing all av­enues to ad­vance this project.

Af­ter years of un­der­per­for­mance, nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion is pro­ject­ed to re­cov­er from the cur­rent lev­els of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2.6 bil­lion cu­bic feet per day (bcf/d) to over 3.2 bcf/d by 2027. As new fields come on­line, the de­vel­op­ment of the Man­a­tee field alone, with es­ti­mat­ed re­serves of more than 2 tril­lion cu­bic feet of gas, will be ground­break­ing for our econ­o­my. On the oth­er hand, oil pro­duc­tion, which has av­er­aged just 60,000 bar­rels per day in re­cent years, is al­so ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from en­hanced ex­plo­ration and de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives.

Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion re­mains at the heart of our strat­e­gy. We are al­ready fo­cus­ing on Agri­cul­ture, man­u­fac­tur­ing, tourism and the ser­vice in­dus­try, amongst oth­ers. In­creas­ing in­vest­ments and fa­cil­i­tat­ing growth in agri­cul­ture and agro-pro­cess­ing will not on­ly sup­port the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion thrust but al­so strength­en our agri­cul­tur­al base for food se­cu­ri­ty and re­duce our food im­port bill. We will al­so fo­cus on ex­pand­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­ports, boost­ing med­ical, sport, health, ed­u­ca­tion­al, and cul­tur­al tourism, and ac­cel­er­at­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, among oth­ers. These are ex­pect­ed to gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment, in­crease for­eign ex­change cur­ren­cy in­flows, and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple and small busi­ness­es.

For­eign ex­change short­ages re­main a chal­lenge for busi­ness­es, lim­it­ing ac­cess to raw ma­te­ri­als and pro­duc­tion. The un­fair prac­tices at ma­jor com­mer­cial banks and the Ex­im Bank have ex­ac­er­bat­ed these short­ages. This Ad­min­is­tra­tion will act de­ci­sive­ly to sta­bi­lize the ex­ter­nal po­si­tion. By restor­ing en­er­gy pro­duc­tion and cre­at­ing an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment for busi­ness and in­vest­ment, we will in­crease for­eign cur­ren­cy in­flow. We will en­sure that pro­duc­tive sec­tors have ac­cess to for­eign ex­change. We have in­stalled new boards at First Cit­i­zens Bank and The Ex­im Bank, and we will move to in­stall a ma­jor­i­ty of di­rec­tors at Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed. I am proud to an­nounce that in our ef­fort to build eco­nom­ic fair­ness, To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests will be rep­re­sent­ed on all three boards, with a To­bag­on­ian on each board.

By ac­cel­er­at­ing en­er­gy pro­duc­tion, broad­en­ing and deep­en­ing di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, con­sol­i­dat­ing the fis­cal ac­counts, and tak­ing proac­tive steps to sta­bi­lize the ex­ter­nal sec­tor, we will pro­tect Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­vest­ment-grade stand­ing and de­liv­er sus­tain­able growth. Above all, our medi­um-term plan is about restor­ing con­fi­dence, pro­tect­ing liveli­hoods, and cre­at­ing di­verse op­por­tu­ni­ties for every cit­i­zen.

In­sti­tu­tion­al Strength­en­ing: Ac­count­abil­i­ty and Re­new­al

The for­mer PNM Gov­ern­ment sab­o­taged the in­tegri­ty and per­for­mance of our very crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions. Your UNC Gov­ern­ment has al­ready com­menced the strength­en­ing and re­design­ing of these in­sti­tu­tions to be ef­fec­tive, ac­count­able and re­silient.

Re­vised Guide­lines for the Per­for­mance of the State En­ter­pris­es, State Owned En­ter­pris­es, and Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties

When I as­sumed Of­fice, I found State En­ter­pris­es in a state of ab­solute de­cay with mul­ti­ple ex­am­ples of cor­rup­tion, abuse of Of­fice, lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty and lack of trans­paren­cy. This is con­firmed by the last Re­port of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor, which stat­ed that $5 bil­lion in con­tracts were il­le­gal­ly award­ed by Min­istries in one fi­nan­cial year. Con­tracts were award­ed with­out ten­der­ing, with­out key per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors, with no form of mon­i­tor­ing for val­ue-for-mon­ey and in some in­stances with­out any ver­i­fi­ca­tion that con­tracts were in fact com­plet­ed. This was a ver­i­ta­ble feed­ing fren­zy of enor­mous pro­por­tions.

The Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way Ex­ten­sion has cost over­runs of over 250 mil­lion dol­lars on a 400-mil­lion-dol­lar orig­i­nal con­tract. We are be­ing price-gouged by sup­pli­ers for med­i­cines, med­ical sup­plies, and med­ical ser­vices to the tune of al­most 500 mil­lion dol­lars a year. Just at Queens Hall near­by, they have been rent­ing a tent worth 30 thou­sand dol­lars since 2023. The three-year con­tract has cost 2 mil­lion dol­lars thus far and would sur­pass 3 mil­lion dol­lars when it ex­pires. Three mil­lion dol­lars in rent for a 30-thou­sand-dol­lar tent!

The pop­u­la­tion was robbed of bil­lions of dol­lars that could have been spent on med­i­cine, crime-fight­ing equip­ment, school sup­plies, so­cial grants for the vul­ner­a­ble, in­fra­struc­ture works to pre­vent flood­ing, and more. All of this hap­pened un­der the for­mer regime. Over the last 9 years, at this rate, $45 bil­lion was lost to PNM-spon­sored theft. No one was held ac­count­able. That is why you are see­ing PNM ap­pointees re­sign­ing and run­ning; they are be­ing called on to ac­count for bil­lions of tax­pay­er dol­lars that were wast­ed.

We are re­plac­ing out­dat­ed frame­works with mod­ern gov­er­nance stan­dards. The Min­istry of Fi­nance is up­dat­ing the ob­so­lete State En­ter­prise Per­for­mance Mon­i­tor­ing Man­u­al. This will en­sure the best in­ter­na­tion­al prac­tices con­cern­ing cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and de­liv­er­ing val­ue for tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey.

Let me give you just one ex­am­ple of why these changes are be­ing made:

Mr Speak­er, CAL’s Man­age­ment spent more than $60 mil­lion on au­dits from Ernst & Young and Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers, but still failed to sub­mit a sin­gle au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ment to the Min­istry of Fi­nance in over 9 years. Shock­ing­ly, even in the ab­sence of these au­dit­ed ac­counts, the for­mer Min­is­ter of Fi­nance re­peat­ed­ly ap­proved fi­nanc­ing for CAL in 2017, 2018, 2019 and as re­cent­ly as March 2025 to cov­er op­er­a­tional short­falls. The for­mer Min­is­ter of Fi­nance closed his eyes as CAL de­scend­ed in­to in­ef­fi­cien­cy, non-com­pli­ance and fis­cal in­dis­ci­pline, leav­ing be­hind not a na­tion­al air­line but a na­tion­al li­a­bil­i­ty. Worse yet, he ac­tive­ly fu­eled this reck­less be­hav­iour by re­peat­ed­ly ap­prov­ing bil­lions in fi­nanc­ing with­out de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty. In so do­ing, the MP for Diego Mar­tin North East fa­cil­i­tat­ed mis­man­age­ment, nor­mal­ized waste and cor­rup­tion and aban­doned his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of fidu­cia­ry over­sight. This is noth­ing short of crim­i­nal neg­li­gence.

We have now in­stalled a strong Board of Di­rec­tors who are mak­ing the hard de­ci­sions re­quired to fix our na­tion­al air­line. This is your Gov­ern­ment work­ing to en­sure ac­count­able fis­cal poli­cies.

Re­peal of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA)

One of our first ac­tions up­on tak­ing Of­fice was to re­peal the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act and move quick­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to strength­en and equip the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion with the tech­nol­o­gy, skills and le­gal au­thor­i­ty, to de­liv­er time­ly, ef­fi­cient and trans­par­ent ser­vice to cit­i­zens, which will re­sult in a broad­en­ing of the tax base and a sig­nif­i­cant en­hance­ment in rev­enue col­lec­tion.

The pre­vi­ous Ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der-re­sourced and ne­glect­ed both the IRD and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED), ad­vanc­ing the TTRA as a re­place­ment. For ex­am­ple, the Pe­tro­le­um and Large Tax­pay­ers Busi­ness Unit, an en­ti­ty re­spon­si­ble for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 85 per cent of to­tal tax rev­enue, was left op­er­at­ing at just 10 per cent of its re­quired ca­pac­i­ty. The re­cruit­ment of 100 ac­coun­tants and au­di­tors, promised in the 2022 Bud­get, nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. They de­lib­er­ate­ly and re­peat­ed­ly sab­o­taged the coun­try’s largest rev­enue col­lec­tor.

From this podi­um to­day, I chal­lenge the PNM to tell the coun­try in whose in­ter­est they were work­ing when they chose to un­der­mine our tax col­lec­tion sys­tem and com­pro­mise the in­tegri­ty of our coun­try’s rev­enue.

Mod­erni­sa­tion of the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD)

The mod­erni­sa­tion of the IRD is be­ing rolled out. For well over a decade, the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) has op­er­at­ed un­der se­vere hu­man re­source con­straints. In con­trast, its ap­proved es­tab­lish­ment al­lows for 1,054 posts. As of 2024–2025, on­ly 356 have been filled, with a fur­ther 286 of­fices oc­cu­pied by act­ing of­fi­cers. This per­sis­tent un­der­staffing un­der­mines com­pli­ance and erodes the state's cred­i­bil­i­ty.

To ad­dress these de­fi­cien­cies, the Gov­ern­ment has ad­vanced a three-pronged strat­e­gy: short-term mea­sures to sta­bilise op­er­a­tions, medi­um-term re­forms to mod­ernise sys­tems, and long-term ini­tia­tives to strength­en in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty.

Sta­bilised Op­er­a­tions

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions De­part­ment, pri­or­i­ty is be­ing giv­en to fill­ing all va­cant posts and ac­cel­er­at­ing the re­cruit­ment process. Im­me­di­ate ac­tion will fo­cus on the ap­point­ment of:

58 Field Au­di­tors I

50 Tax Of­fi­cers I

33 Rev­enue Of­fi­cers I, and crit­i­cal cler­i­cal and ma­nip­u­la­tive staff.

In ad­di­tion, 64 Tax Au­di­tors, 60 Tax Mon­i­tors, 5 Crim­i­nal Tax In­ves­ti­ga­tion Of­fi­cers and 48 ICT Of­fi­cers will be en­gaged on con­tract to ex­pand au­dit cov­er­age, ar­rears col­lec­tion, re­turn pro­cess­ing, and tax­pay­er ser­vices.

Mod­ernised Sys­tems

We will dri­ve a com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of IRD and have com­menced pro­cure­ment of an up­grad­ed Gen­Tax sys­tem to un­der­pin the tax ad­min­is­tra­tion func­tion at the IRD. This mod­ern sys­tem will sup­port every core func­tion at the IRD, in­clud­ing tax­pay­er reg­is­tra­tion, ef­fi­cient re­turn pro­cess­ing, pay­ments, col­lec­tions, com­pli­ance, and an­a­lyt­ics. The IRD has al­ready achieved 100 per cent elec­tron­ic tax fil­ing, and this Gov­ern­ment will uti­lize and ex­pand on the ad­vanced fea­tures of Gen­Tax to cre­ate a seam­less, end-to-end dig­i­tal tax ecosys­tem that pro­motes vol­un­tary com­pli­ance, fair en­force­ment, risk-based seg­men­ta­tion, and high-qual­i­ty ser­vice de­liv­ery.

Fur­ther, the Tax Ad­min­is­tra­tion Im­prove­ment Unit will be ex­pand­ed to ad­dress the evolv­ing needs of tax­pay­ers.

Build Ca­pac­i­ty

The im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty for the IRD is to sta­bilise its op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty through tar­get­ed staffing in­ter­ven­tions. It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that with this co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach with the Ser­vice Com­mis­sion De­part­ment, the pro­mo­tion of all of­fi­cers act­ing in va­cant posts and the fill­ing of all va­cant en­try-lev­el po­si­tions will be com­plet­ed by Feb­ru­ary 2026. Ob­vi­ous­ly, this will re­sult in sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased rev­enue col­lec­tion.

Strength­en­ing of the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED)

Cus­toms ad­min­is­tra­tions world­wide strike a bal­ance be­tween bor­der pro­tec­tion and trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion. In our con­text, where cus­toms du­ties, VAT, and mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax­es con­sti­tute a sig­nif­i­cant share of tax rev­enue, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion is cen­tral to both na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic man­age­ment. Fur­ther­more, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion is charged with de­ter­ring the il­le­gal move­ment of firearms, nar­cotics, coun­ter­feit goods, haz­ardous sub­stances and un­doc­u­ment­ed per­sons.

De­spite its man­date, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion suf­fered sev­er­al con­straints over the past nine and a half years, in­clud­ing:

Out­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion, ICT sys­tems, and in­fra­struc­ture, such as the Au­to­mat­ed Sys­tem for Cus­toms Da­ta (ASY­CU­DA);

Un­der staffing in the Di­vi­sion; and

Lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ty for elec­tron­ic screen­ing and en­force­ment at tran­sit sheds and ports.

To ad­dress these chal­lenges, this Ad­min­is­tra­tion has com­menced con­cert­ed ini­tia­tives to dri­ve the mod­erni­sa­tion of the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion:

Tar­get­ed staffing, first: We are mov­ing swift­ly to fill all va­can­cies in the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion. Pro­mo­tions: We have al­ready adopt­ed tar­get­ed staff in­ter­ven­tion by rec­om­mend­ing to the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion in­di­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly act­ing in key roles. Re­cruit­ment: The re­cruit­ment process for Cus­toms Guard I, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Of­fi­cer I and key In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy to sup­port the re­cent­ly up­grad­ed ASY­CU­DA Sys­tem is at an ad­vanced stage.

Sec­ond, sup­port train­ing and hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment: In par­al­lel with staffing, we will roll out a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gramme. Bridg­ing Gaps: Hand-in-hand with our con­cert­ed dri­ve to fill these va­can­cies, we will roll out a com­pre­hen­sive and all-in­clu­sive train­ing pro­gramme. The Di­vi­sion will con­duct more fre­quent, risk-based au­dits of es­tab­lish­ments. Au­dit teams, which are part of the di­vi­sion Reg­u­la­to­ry Unit, will be trained in dig­i­tal au­dit tech­niques, equipped with mod­ern tools cre­at­ed by the World Cus­toms Or­ga­ni­za­tion, and guid­ed by an­nu­al sched­ules and sur­prise spot checks of im­porters and bro­kers.

This com­bined ap­proach will en­sure greater com­pli­ance, quick­er pro­cess­ing, and more con­sis­tent en­force­ment, there­by safe­guard­ing gov­ern­ment rev­enue and pro­mot­ing fair­ness in the ex­cise sys­tem. We aim to de­ploy Pre­ven­tive Of­fi­cers to Ex­cise es­tab­lish­ments to boost en­force­ment and re­duce rev­enue leak­ages.

Re­as­sign­ments: To en­hance ef­fi­cien­cy at tran­sit points, staff will be re­as­signed to crit­i­cal units such as Val­u­a­tions, Post-Au­dit and Tran­sit Sheds. Re­tired of­fi­cers will be en­gaged to men­tor re­cruits, while ad­di­tion­al cashiers will be em­ployed to ex­tend pay­ment hours at Cus­toms lo­ca­tions.

Train­ing School Up­grade: Over the next 24 months, the Cus­toms Train­ing School will be up­grad­ed with mod­ern fa­cil­i­ties, sim­u­la­tion labs, on­line learn­ing ca­pac­i­ty, and a struc­tured cur­ricu­lum aligned with World Cus­toms Or­ga­ni­za­tion stan­dards.

Part­ner­ships: Train­ing will be de­liv­ered through part­ner­ships with the US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion, World Cus­toms Or­ga­ni­za­tion, re­gion­al cus­toms schools, and lo­cal uni­ver­si­ties. Train­ing will cov­er all of­fi­cer lev­els, from in­duc­tion for re­cruits to con­tin­u­ous pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment and na­tion­wide e-learn­ing. Lead­er­ship pro­grammes, al­ready launched with US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion sup­port, will al­so be ex­pand­ed to build the next gen­er­a­tion of su­per­vi­sors and man­agers through tar­get­ed train­ing, men­tor­ship, and ro­ta­tion­al ex­po­sure.

Third­ly, tech­nol­o­gy up­grade: Elec­tron­ic pay­ments: To im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, af­ter urg­ing the pre­vi­ous regime that re­fused to im­ple­ment elec­tron­ic pay­ments, will fi­nal­ly be able to do so by the end of 2025.

ASY­CU­DA Up­grade: In part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­fer­ence on Trade and De­vel­op­ment (UNC­TAD), we have launched an 18-month pro­gramme to up­grade the ASY­CU­DA sys­tem. Un­der this arrange­ment, our trade and cus­toms op­er­a­tions will be mod­ern­ized through the Ex­tend­ed Dig­i­tal­iza­tion of Cus­toms us­ing the ASY­CU­DA World and ASY­HUB plat­forms by stream­lin­ing process­es, re­duc­ing man­u­al in­ter­ven­tions, and strength­en­ing risk man­age­ment. These plat­forms will sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce clear­ance times, aim­ing to trans­fer be­tween pri­vate bond­ed ware­hous­es with­in 24 hours, and will low­er costs as­so­ci­at­ed with in­ter­na­tion­al trade. They will al­so en­hance rev­enue col­lec­tion and pro­vide re­li­able, re­al-time in­for­ma­tion on im­ports and ex­ports. The up­grad­ed ASY­CU­DA sys­tem will sup­port full val­u­a­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties, elec­tron­ic de­c­la­ra­tions, up­dat­ed trade pro­to­cols, and in­te­gra­tion with the Port Com­mu­ni­ty Sys­tem.

To achieve this, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the UNC­TAD Team, we have formed a part­ner project team with­in the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and the Min­istry of Fi­nance. This team will be sup­port­ed by a broad-based steer­ing com­mit­tee com­pris­ing all rel­e­vant pri­vate and pub­lic stake­hold­ers to en­sure the project is com­plet­ed with­in the tar­get­ed 18-month time­line. I am hap­py to in­form this Ho­n­ourable House, that on Oc­to­ber 7, 2025, the ASY­CU­DA Agree­ment was signed be­tween the Min­istry of Fi­nance and UNC­TAD to deep­en our long-stand­ing part­ner­ship through ex­ten­sive up­grades to the world’s lead­ing Cus­toms man­age­ment sys­tem.

Fur­ther­more, in the Medi­um-Term, we aim to sup­port or­gan­i­sa­tion­al re­view and in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment at the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion. This would in­clude a re­view of the staffing es­tab­lish­ment and a roll-out of im­proved and more com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­grammes, with strict back­ground and per­son­nel vet­ting to up­hold in­tegri­ty and trans­paren­cy.

In keep­ing with its strate­gic di­rec­tion, risk man­age­ment will be em­bed­ded across car­go ex­am­i­na­tion, ver­i­fi­ca­tion, and de­liv­ery to boost ef­fi­cien­cy, rev­enue col­lec­tion, bor­der pro­tec­tion, and ease of do­ing busi­ness. To dri­ve this re­form agen­da, a ded­i­cat­ed Project Team will be es­tab­lished and man­dat­ed to over­see im­ple­men­ta­tion.

To strength­en pre­ven­tive and en­force­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion will ex­pand its spe­cial­ized units over the next 15 to 24 months, en­hanc­ing ca­pac­i­ty in ma­rine in­ter­dic­tion, ca­nine de­tec­tion, drone sur­veil­lance, and in­tel­li­gence analy­sis. These ef­forts will be sup­port­ed by the ac­qui­si­tion of pa­trol ves­sels, scan­ners, ve­hi­cles, com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, and mod­ern sur­veil­lance tools to im­prove rapid re­sponse and non-in­tru­sive in­spec­tions. Op­er­a­tions will al­so be bet­ter in­te­grat­ed through a cen­tral­ized com­mand cen­tre, joint task forces, and stan­dard­ized pro­to­cols for in­tel­li­gence shar­ing and co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion.

This in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing of the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion is a mat­ter of na­tion­al sur­vival. For too long, our bor­ders were left un­se­cured, our sys­tems out­dat­ed, and our en­force­ment ca­pac­i­ty weak­ened. Un­der this new Ad­min­is­tra­tion, through strong over­sight, we will build a more ro­bust and ac­count­able In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion and Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion.

En­sur­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Tax Com­pli­ance

Mr Speak­er, the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem in­creas­ing­ly de­mands that coun­tries ad­here to the high­est stan­dards of trans­paren­cy and co­op­er­a­tion and fail­ure to do so car­ries very re­al costs in terms of bor­row­ing, in­vest­ment and rep­u­ta­tion. Since as­sum­ing of­fice, this Gov­ern­ment has act­ed with ur­gency and fo­cus to fi­nalise the out­stand­ing re­quire­ments.

I am pleased to an­nounce that Trinidad and To­ba­go, un­der the guid­ance and man­age­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, is on course to be re­moved from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es in Feb­ru­ary 2026.

Cur­rent­ly, two cri­te­ria must be met be­fore we can be for­mal­ly re­moved from the list. The first is Cri­te­ri­on 1.1, con­cern­ing the Au­to­mat­ic Ex­change of Fi­nan­cial Ac­count In­for­ma­tion. Trinidad and To­ba­go is sched­uled to be cleared in the up­com­ing AEOI Peer Re­view Up­date, which will be pub­lished in De­cem­ber 2025. The sec­ond is Cri­te­ri­on 3.2, re­lat­ing to the Base Ero­sion and Prof­it Shift­ing Coun­try-by-Coun­try Re­port­ing stan­dard. This was con­firmed in the OECD’s Peer Re­view Com­pi­la­tion Re­port re­leased in Sep­tem­ber 2025, which con­clud­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s do­mes­tic and ex­change-of-in­for­ma­tion frame­works now meet the min­i­mum in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, paving the way for our delist­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2026.

We ex­pect that such delist­ing will low­er our bor­row­ing cost, deep­en our cap­i­tal mar­ket, en­hance rev­enue and strength­en for­eign ex­change in­flows. For our fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, stronger cor­re­spon­dent bank­ing ties will re­duce trans­ac­tion costs and ac­cel­er­ate pay­ments, di­rect­ly im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness. Diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, delist­ing will re­move a sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­er that has con­strained re­la­tions with EU Mem­ber States. With this ob­sta­cle lift­ed, Trinidad and To­ba­go will be able to un­lock greater co­op­er­a­tion in cli­mate fi­nance, se­cu­ri­ty, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing.

Re­form­ing Trans­fer Pric­ing

Multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions must pay their fair share of tax­es. For years un­der the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment, the is­sue of Trans­fer Pric­ing was raised but nev­er ful­ly ad­dressed in a co­he­sive and struc­tured man­ner. A study by the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) es­ti­mat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go lost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $17.5 bil­lion over eight years due to the fail­ure to act on Trans­fer Pric­ing. Un­til now, no ef­fort has been made to pro­tect the pub­lic purse.

This Gov­ern­ment will once and for all re­view, make ad­just­ments and im­ple­ment Trans­fer Pric­ing leg­is­la­tion to se­cure and for­ti­fy our rev­enue base. This pri­ma­ry leg­is­la­tion will be fol­lowed by sec­ondary leg­is­la­tion and reg­u­la­tions that will pro­vide the de­tailed rules, method­olo­gies and com­pli­ance oblig­a­tions to en­sure smooth and ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion. Con­comi­tant­ly, a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gramme for Trans­fer Pric­ing tech­niques, doc­u­men­ta­tion re­quire­ments and au­dit method­olo­gies will be rolled out at the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion. These ini­tia­tives will en­sure that multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies that op­er­ate in our ju­ris­dic­tions pay their fair share of tax­es to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

What those op­po­site failed or re­fused to do in 10 years, we will do in 2 years, in the in­ter­est of the tax-pay­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The ben­e­fits to Trinidad and To­ba­go are wide-rang­ing, se­cur­ing rev­enues and ad­just­ing prof­it shift­ing in key sec­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly oil, gas, petro­chem­i­cals, fi­nance and ser­vices. It will lev­el the play­ing field for lo­cal busi­ness­es, en­sur­ing they are not dis­ad­van­taged against multi­na­tion­als that shift prof­its abroad. It will pro­vide cer­tain­ty for in­vestors, who will know that Trinidad and To­ba­go ap­plies rules that are trans­par­ent, pre­dictable and con­sis­tent with glob­al prac­tice. It will en­hance our ne­go­ti­at­ing po­si­tion with both multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies and treaty part­ners, al­low­ing us to de­fend our tax­ing rights with con­fi­dence backed by in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

Very soon, I will bring draft leg­is­la­tion be­fore this Ho­n­ourable House, en­gage with stake­hold­ers, com­mence of­fi­cer train­ing and fi­nalise the reg­u­la­tions and guide­lines need­ed to make this re­form a re­al­i­ty.

Strength­en­ing Fi­nan­cial In­tegri­ty and Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (FATF) Com­pli­ance

Mr Speak­er, on Sep­tem­ber 19 and 26, 2025, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate, re­spec­tive­ly, passed two crit­i­cal pieces of leg­is­la­tion:

the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (FATF Com­pli­ance) Act, 2025

and the Counter-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing Act, 2025.

These mea­sures rep­re­sent de­ci­sive steps in strength­en­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work against mon­ey laun­der­ing, cor­rup­tion, ter­ror­ism fi­nanc­ing and pro­lif­er­a­tion fi­nanc­ing. Be­yond leg­is­la­tion, this Gov­ern­ment is in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in sys­tems and in­sti­tu­tions to en­sure ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion. The Na­tion­al An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing and Counter-Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism Com­mit­tee (NAMLC) has been strength­ened, un­der the lead­er­ship of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, to dri­ve na­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion.

Ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing ini­tia­tives are be­ing rolled out for the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion, law en­force­ment agen­cies, oth­er Com­pe­tent Au­thor­i­ties and the ju­di­cia­ry, en­sur­ing that every arm of the sys­tem is pre­pared to demon­strate ef­fec­tive­ness dur­ing the as­sess­ment. Pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and in­dus­try sen­si­ti­sa­tion pro­grammes are al­so be­ing ad­vanced to sup­port com­pli­ance by fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, list­ed busi­ness­es and non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so con­tin­ues to demon­strate its com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing its An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing, Counter Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism and Counter Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing (AML/CFT/CPF) frame­work through the con­duct of its sec­ond Na­tion­al Risk As­sess­ment, which was pub­lished in June this year, as well as the de­vel­op­ment of the Na­tion­al AML/CFT/CPF Pol­i­cy and Strat­e­gy, which this Gov­ern­ment ap­proved in Ju­ly 2025. The coun­try is now up­dat­ing its sec­ond Na­tion­al Risk As­sess­ment to en­sure we keep abreast with the ever-evolv­ing land­scape.

The im­por­tance of this work can­not be over­stat­ed. Se­cur­ing favourable rat­ings in the 5th Round Mu­tu­al Eval­u­a­tion, will as­sist Trinidad and To­ba­go to ex­it the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of high-risk third coun­tries, there­by im­prov­ing ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial mar­kets and strength­en­ing cor­re­spon­dent bank­ing re­la­tion­ships.

Mr Speak­er, un­der this Gov­ern­ment, Trinidad and To­ba­go will meet the high­est in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards in fi­nan­cial in­tegri­ty.

CEPEP AND URP

This Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to end­ing the state fund­ing of crim­i­nal gangs by elim­i­nat­ing the CEPEP and URP and re­plac­ing them with pro­vid­ing full-time, bet­ter-paid jobs. To this end, I have es­tab­lished an Em­ploy­ment Fund in the Min­istry of Fi­nance with $475 mil­lion, which will be utilised to­geth­er with the $310 mil­lion in the Un­em­ploy­ment Fund for job cre­ation. The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter will pro­vide greater de­tail on this very crit­i­cal job cre­ation ex­er­cise dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion.

Im­prove­ments to the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB)

Com­bat­ting Il­le­gal Lot­tery

NL­CB is a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor of rev­enue to the Gov­ern­ment with an­nu­al gross rev­enues close to $3 bil­lion. How­ev­er, il­le­gal lot­ter­ies com­pris­ing bets and pay-outs fa­cil­i­tat­ed by third par­ties on the NL­CB’s le­gal lot­tery games con­tin­ue to im­pair the NL­CB’s prof­it mar­gins. It is es­ti­mat­ed that rev­enues gen­er­at­ed from il­le­gal lot­ter­ies are up­wards of $9 bil­lion per year. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, these il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties al­so rob the Gov­ern­ment of In­come Tax, Cor­po­ra­tion Tax, Wind­fall Tax and Di­rect Rev­enues from NL­CB’s avail­able sur­plus­es. Fur­ther­more, these il­le­gal op­er­a­tors are re­port­ed­ly al­so in­volved in oth­er forms of il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing mon­ey-laun­der­ing, black mar­ket ac­tiv­i­ties and hu­man traf­fick­ing.

To com­bat il­le­gal lot­ter­ies, I pro­pose to in­crease ex­ist­ing penal­ties un­der Sec­tions 19, 20 and 21 of the Gam­bling and Bet­ting Act. As an ex­am­ple, un­der Sec­tion 19, this penal­ty will be in­creased to a fine of $250,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for 3 years; or (b) con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to a fine of $3.0 mil­lion and to im­pris­on­ment for 7 years. This is con­sis­tent with the new penal­ties that will be im­ple­ment­ed as soon as the Gam­bling (Gam­ing Bet­ting and Con­trol) Act is pro­claimed.

Mr Speak­er, notwith­stand­ing the il­le­gal­i­ty of lot­ter­ies un­der the Gam­bling and Bet­ting Act, it is es­sen­tial to high­light that cur­rent il­le­gal lot­ter­ies may not be cap­tured un­der those of­fences. Mod­ern il­le­gal lot­ter­ies are not con­duct­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly but in­stead use the re­sults of the NL­CB’s On­line lot­tery draws. In this re­gard, tick­ets are is­sued to play­ers, usu­al­ly re­sem­bling a re­ceipt from a gro­cery store. Con­se­quent­ly, to com­bat this new mode of il­le­gal lot­tery, the fol­low­ing is pro­posed:

The in­tro­duc­tion of a new crim­i­nal of­fence un­der the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Act, which mir­rors Sec­tion 19 of the Gam­bling and Bet­ting Act but which crim­i­nal­izes the re­ceipt of a bet, is­suance of a tick­et or pay-out of any monies, pur­suant to the re­sults of a NL­CB’s On-line draw, where the per­sons is not an Agent or the NL­CB or, where the per­son is an Agent, the monies are re­turned to the NL­CB. This of­fence should be heav­i­ly crim­i­nalised and car­ry a fine of $250,000 and im­pris­on­ment for 3 years, OR con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to a fine of $3.0 mil­lion and im­pris­on­ment for 7 years. The NL­CB’s ev­i­dence of the re­sults and who are au­tho­rised agents would be pri­ma fa­cie ev­i­dence for these mat­ters, there­fore al­low­ing the NL­CB to give ev­i­dence to the po­lice that can sup­port crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions. This would en­able more NL­CB in­put in fight­ing against il­le­gal lot­ter­ies; and More­over, the of­fence would de­fine a “tick­et” broad­ly to en­sure that “gro­cery re­ceipts” are cov­ered.

Quar­ter­ly Pay­ments and In­tro­duc­ing a Hard and Fast Bud­get for the NL­CB

Mr Speak­er, ow­ing to a lack of au­dits and the broad in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Sec­tion 23 of the NL­CB Act, NL­CB has been able to re­tain tens of mil­lions of dol­lars ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over the years. To com­bat this phe­nom­e­non and al­low the Gov­ern­ment bet­ter ac­cess to NL­CB’s rev­enues, it is pro­posed that:

NL­CB make quar­ter­ly pay­ments to the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund, as op­posed to an­nu­al; and

NL­CB be sub­ject to fi­nan­cial lim­its ex­pressed by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance in re­la­tion to var­i­ous items of ex­pen­di­ture. This would en­sure that a hard and fast bud­get by the NL­CB would be in place, re­sult­ing in bet­ter con­trol of rev­enue re­ten­tion by the NL­CB.

Cor­rect­ing the Deficit of the Sport and Cul­ture Fund

Fi­nal­ly, pur­suant to Sec­tion 23A of the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Act, In­stant Lot­tery sur­plus is paid in­to the Sport and Cul­ture Fund. How­ev­er, over the years, the in­stant lot­tery has not been prof­itable, re­sult­ing in some years hav­ing no de­posits in the Sport and Cul­ture Fund. To com­bat this, de­posits to the Sport and Cul­ture Fund would be set and ap­proved by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and would not be sub­ject on­ly to the in­stant lot­tery sur­plus. This, to­geth­er with the in­tro­duc­tion of a hard and fast bud­get by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, would al­low greater con­trol over NL­CB spon­sor­ships and al­low bet­ter fi­nan­cial man­age­ment of the Sport and Cul­ture Fund.

Es­tab­lish­ment of Fi­nan­cial Over­sight & Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee – “FOAC”

This Com­mit­tee will pro­vide over­sight and per­for­mance man­age­ment for the Gov­ern­ment. He will have the au­thor­i­ty to re­view, ap­prove, and mon­i­tor all ma­jor Bud­get Items, such as Min­is­te­r­i­al ex­pen­di­ture, projects, and in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, across all Min­istries at the sole dis­cre­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter. This Com­mit­tee will work along­side the rel­e­vant Min­istry rep­re­sen­ta­tives and stake­hold­ers to en­sure the ex­e­cu­tion and prop­er man­age­ment of state re­sources. This Com­mit­tee will be chaired by the Prime Min­is­ter, and the Deputy Chair will be the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance. The FOAC will screen ma­jor ex­pense items, in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, projects and fund­ing pro­pos­als at a strate­gic lev­el and pro­vide over­sight and gov­er­nance to ad­vance pro­pos­als be­fore Cab­i­net con­sid­er­a­tion (and F&GP).

Es­tab­lish­ment of Eco­nom­ic Re­silience Coun­cil (ERC)

Recog­nis­ing the im­per­a­tive of sus­tained eco­nom­ic growth, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, and na­tion­al eco­nom­ic re­silience, the Eco­nom­ic Re­silience Coun­cil will be es­tab­lished to serve as a strate­gic ad­vis­ing and pol­i­cy co­or­di­nat­ing body. It will sup­port and guide eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives that at­tract in­vest­ment, stim­u­late en­tre­pre­neur­ship, gen­er­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, and pro­mote eq­ui­table pros­per­i­ty for all cit­i­zens. The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance will chair the ERC and re­tain com­mer­cial con­sul­tants as need­ed to pro­vide sub­ject mat­ter ex­per­tise. These con­sul­tants will work along­side rel­e­vant Min­istry rep­re­sen­ta­tives and ap­plic­a­ble stake­hold­ers to en­sure the ex­e­cu­tion and prop­er man­age­ment of state re­sources, in line with the ap­proved Bud­get and Of­fi­cial Pol­i­cy Frame­work. The com­mit­tee will over­see the Fi­nan­cial Eval­u­a­tion and Ap­proval of all Eco­nom­ic Trans­for­ma­tion Strate­gies, Bor­row­ings, In­vest­ments and Projects over $50 mil­lion. The Coun­cil is man­dat­ed to sup­port the na­tion’s eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion by fa­cil­i­tat­ing in­vest­ment, fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion, pro­mot­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness, and guid­ing the tran­si­tion to­ward a knowl­edge-based, ex­port-ori­ent­ed, and in­clu­sive econ­o­my.

Wage Ne­go­ti­a­tions and Job Eval­u­a­tion Ex­er­cise

I turn now to our cam­paign promise to ad­dress the out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA). For far too long, our pub­lic of­fi­cers, the back­bone of our na­tion’s work­force, have been made to car­ry the weight of the for­mer Gov­ern­ment’s ne­glect and in­dif­fer­ence. This Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing this bold and his­toric step to re­store jus­tice, dig­ni­ty and re­spect to the hard-work­ing men and women of the pub­lic ser­vice. Af­ter nine long years of stag­na­tion, we are com­mit­ted to fi­nal­ly bring­ing all par­ties back to the bar­gain­ing ta­ble to ad­dress this long-over­due in­jus­tice. On the com­ple­tion of the bar­gain­ing process, we will work with Re­pub­lic, First Cit­i­zens Bank and the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board to find a com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tion to dis­charge this na­tion­al oblig­a­tion.

This Gov­ern­ment is fo­cused on de­liv­ery and not de­lay, work­ers’ rights and not ne­glect, ap­pre­ci­a­tion and not ex­cus­es. In fur­ther­ance of the con­clu­sion of ne­go­ti­a­tions for the Civ­il Ser­vice, Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly for the pe­ri­ods 2014-2016 and 2017-2019, the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has in­struct­ed me to ad­vise the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer to sub­mit a re­vised of­fer of 10 per cent.

Promise made, promise kept, be­cause, when UNC wins, pub­lic ser­vants win!!

I wish to ad­vise the mem­bers of the Teach­ing Ser­vice, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, and the Port of Spain and San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tions that this Gov­ern­ment will rat­i­fy the Col­lec­tive Agree­ments signed in April 2025 be­tween the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer and their re­spec­tive As­so­ci­a­tions/Union/Com­mit­tee. The re­cur­rent cost of im­ple­ment­ing these Agree­ments is es­ti­mat­ed at $214 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, with ar­rears of $730 mil­lion as of De­cem­ber 2025.

Group Health Plan

I would like to share some ad­di­tion­al pol­i­cy de­ci­sions that this Gov­ern­ment will un­der­take to im­prove the lives of all pub­lic ser­vants, teach­ers and Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers. Up­on as­sum­ing of­fice, I must say that I was shocked to learn that our re­tirees in these groups are re­moved from the UNIMED Group Health Plan pre­cise­ly when med­ical is­sues are more like­ly to arise. The need for Health In­sur­ance be­comes more crit­i­cal. Ac­cord­ing­ly, I have in­struct­ed that an ap­pro­pri­ate Re­quest for Pro­pos­al be pre­pared and is­sued to seek pro­pos­als from the mar­ket for an op­tion that al­lows our re­tirees and their fam­i­lies to re­tain mem­ber­ship in the pub­lic sec­tor health plan.

Job Eval­u­a­tion Ex­er­cis­es

The Job Eval­u­a­tion Ex­er­cis­es for the Civ­il Ser­vice are es­ti­mat­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in the next 6 to 8 months. This ma­jor ex­er­cise marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the mod­erni­sa­tion of the Pub­lic Ser­vice. This Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to achiev­ing this ex­er­cise. How­ev­er, apart from the re­vised job de­scrip­tions with up­dat­ed du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, it will pro­vide an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ty for na­tion­als of this coun­try. Up­on com­ple­tion of this ex­er­cise, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 per cent of all fixed-term stan­dard­ised con­tract po­si­tions will be made per­ma­nent and pen­sion­able. In com­par­i­son, an­oth­er 20 to 23 per cent of non-stan­dard fixed-term con­tracts will al­so be ‘clas­si­fied in­to the new grade struc­ture’. This ex­er­cise will re­sult in the re­duc­tion of fixed-term con­tract em­ploy­ment by as much as 63 per cent and bring these con­tract of­fi­cers with­in the am­bit of the Pub­lic Ser­vice.

Re­view of the VAT Sys­tem

All stake­hold­ers are aware that the Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) has be­come in­creas­ing­ly oner­ous to ad­min­is­ter. Busi­ness­es are re­quired to file re­turns and rec­on­cile cred­its every 2 months, while the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion must con­stant­ly process and ver­i­fy re­fund claims. This cy­cle has led to a build-up of re­fund ar­rears, which in turn un­der­mines busi­ness con­fi­dence and strains fis­cal man­age­ment. This is yet an­oth­er un­ten­able sit­u­a­tion that the pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment al­lowed to fes­ter.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, this Gov­ern­ment is to­day sig­nalling its in­ten­tion to re­view the ex­ist­ing VAT regime and, if fea­si­ble, re­place it with a sim­pli­fied, more ef­fi­cient Sales Tax ap­plied at the fi­nal trans­ac­tion point. The con­cept of the Sales Tax sys­tem is sim­pler, more straight­for­ward, eas­i­er to ad­min­is­ter, and elim­i­nates the per­sis­tent and com­plex prob­lem of cal­cu­lat­ing and au­dit­ing re­fund claims.

We plan to ini­ti­ate this re­view in the cur­rent fis­cal year with the nec­es­sary tech­ni­cal guid­ance. The tran­si­tion will re­quire com­pre­hen­sive le­gal amend­ments, ad­min­is­tra­tive re­struc­tur­ing, IT re­con­fig­u­ra­tion, and close con­sul­ta­tion with stake­hold­ers across the econ­o­my. At the same time, the Gov­ern­ment will clear the back­log of VAT re­funds and bring clo­sure to out­stand­ing ar­rears. We will al­so en­sure that any tran­si­tion to Sales Tax is rev­enue-neu­tral and so­cial­ly bal­anced, with ap­pro­pri­ate pro­tec­tions for low-in­come house­holds.

Im­prov­ing Our Place in the World Through Glob­al Part­ner­ships: Strength­en­ing Ties, Ex­pand­ing Op­por­tu­ni­ties

In­dia: A New Era of Co­op­er­a­tion

In Ju­ly 2025, we had the dis­tinct ho­n­our of host­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia, the Ho­n­ourable Naren­dra Mo­di. Dur­ing this vis­it, Trinidad and To­ba­go was recog­nised and con­grat­u­lat­ed for be­ing the first Caribbean na­tion to adopt In­dia’s Uni­fied Pay­ments In­ter­face, a proven dig­i­tal plat­form al­ready used by hun­dreds of mil­lions world­wide. This se­cure sys­tem, which will be rolled out in 2026, will ac­cel­er­ate fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, em­pow­er small busi­ness­es and e-com­merce, and strength­en our dig­i­tal econ­o­my. The Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia al­so made gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tions to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of our peo­ple. In­dia gift­ed 2,000 lap­tops to the Prime Min­is­ter’s flag­ship Lap­top Pro­gramme, with the lap­tops set to ar­rive in De­cem­ber 2025. In agri­cul­ture, In­dia do­nat­ed agro-pro­cess­ing ma­chin­ery val­ued at US$1 mil­lion to NAMDE­V­CO and ex­tend­ed tech­ni­cal sup­port in Nat­ur­al Farm­ing sys­tems. Our health sec­tor al­so ben­e­fit­ed from the gen­er­ous do­na­tion of 20 haemodial­y­sis units and two sea am­bu­lances, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost our ca­pac­i­ty in chron­ic and emer­gency care.

Mr Speak­er, be­tween Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber 2025, a 50-day Jaipur Foot Ar­ti­fi­cial Limb Fit­ment Camp will be es­tab­lished at the Di­vali Na­gar site, ben­e­fit­ing 800 in­di­vid­u­als. More­over, we signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing on the In­di­an Phar­ma­copoeia for the long-term sup­ply of af­ford­able, qual­i­ty gener­ic drugs and treat­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. The Pro­gramme of Cul­tur­al Ex­changes for 2025–2028 be­tween the two na­tions was re­newed, pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for our steel­pan artistes and cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers to show­case their tal­ent in In­dia. In­dia al­so ex­tend­ed their “Over­seas Cit­i­zen­ship of In­dia” el­i­gi­bil­i­ty to the sixth gen­er­a­tion of our di­as­po­ra, strength­en­ing bonds with thou­sands of our cit­i­zens.

Grena­da: Build­ing an En­er­gy and Trade Bridge

With Grena­da, we are re­build­ing an en­er­gy and trade bridge, un­lock­ing Grena­da’s re­sources along­side Trinidad and To­ba­go’s world-class ser­vices. On Ju­ly 29, 2025, the TT and Grena­da Cham­bers of In­dus­try and Com­merce signed a co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment to pur­sue joint ven­tures, mar­ket ac­cess and re­gion­al ex­pan­sion.

Unit­ed States: Se­cu­ri­ty and En­er­gy Co­op­er­a­tion

We are mod­ernising col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed States un­der the Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive to strength­en bor­der and mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty, counter drug and firearms traf­fick­ing, and dis­man­tle or­gan­ised crime. The part­ner­ship has al­ready pro­duced tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing do­nat­ed hos­pi­tal equip­ment and the U.S. Naval Ship COM­FORT mis­sion, which pro­vid­ed free med­ical, den­tal, and eye-care ser­vices to near­ly 2,000 cit­i­zens.

A new mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar agree­ment with Exxon­Mo­bil for ul­tra-deep-wa­ter ex­plo­ration off our east coast, signed in Au­gust 2025, marks the com­pa­ny’s re­turn af­ter two decades. If dis­cov­er­ies prove vi­able, it will an­chor Trinidad and To­ba­go as the hemi­sphere’s en­er­gy hub. Dur­ing the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent vis­it to Wash­ing­ton, dis­cus­sions with Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio reaf­firmed our part­ner­ship on se­cu­ri­ty and coun­ternar­cotics co­op­er­a­tion. The Unit­ed States com­mend­ed our ef­forts to counter transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions and stem il­lic­it firearms and nar­cotics flows. Both Gov­ern­ments al­so pledged con­tin­ued sup­port for UN-led ef­forts to sta­bilise Haiti.

Chi­na and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE): Strate­gic In­vest­ment

Mr Speak­er, dur­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s at­ten­dance at the 80th UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, bi­lat­er­al agree­ments were signed with Chi­na and the UAE. Chi­na will pro­vide a US$94 mil­lion grant to fund na­tion­al projects, in­clud­ing new fire ten­ders for un­der-re­sourced sta­tions. The UAE agree­ment al­lows visa-free en­try for diplo­mat­ic and of­fi­cial pass­port hold­ers and in­cludes an MOU to re­ha­bil­i­tate the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.

These part­ner­ships are prac­ti­cal, not cer­e­mo­ni­al — they ex­pand for­eign ex­change earn­ings, at­tract in­vest­ment, strength­en bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, and open new op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness and peo­ple alike. We will dri­ve them with ur­gency so that diplo­ma­cy de­liv­ers jobs, com­pet­i­tive­ness, and pros­per­i­ty.

Strength­en­ing In­fra­struc­ture for a Safer, Con­nect­ed Na­tion

Pro­vid­ing Re­li­able and Re­silient In­fra­struc­ture

Mod­ern in­fra­struc­ture is the back­bone of a mod­ern econ­o­my. When this Gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice, bridges were un­safe, drains blocked, and coastal roads erod­ing. That era of ne­glect is over. Through the “Boots-on-the-Ground” Ini­tia­tive, the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture is iden­ti­fy­ing roads, drains, and bridges most in need of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, putting peo­ple first and restor­ing safe, re­li­able ac­cess na­tion­wide.

Ad­vanc­ing Flood Mit­i­ga­tion and Drainage Pro­gramme

In Fis­cal 2026, we will ad­vance a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gramme to safe­guard lives and prop­er­ty.

Un­der the Strate­gic Drainage Plan, $13.8 mil­lion will fund stud­ies and de­signs in South Oropouche, and $60 mil­lion for struc­tur­al works in Ca­roni and Oropouche.

The Flood Mit­i­ga­tion and Ero­sion Con­trol Pro­gramme will ex­e­cute 18 on­go­ing and 119 new projects worth $238.6 mil­lion, with $29.95 mil­lion for riv­er clear­ing and em­bank­ments in high-risk com­mu­ni­ties.

Pump-house up­grades and the near-com­ple­tion of the Ca­roni Riv­er Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Project will re­in­force flood de­fences and pro­tect farm­lands and homes.

These 566 projects will bring last­ing so­lu­tions and more cli­mate-re­silient com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In­vest­ing in High­ways and Roads

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.1 bil­lion will be spent to mod­ernise road­ways and im­prove safe­ty.

Port of Spain to East/West Cor­ri­dor works in­clude an over­pass at the Churchill Roo­sevelt and South­ern Main Road junc­tion and Ma­coya In­ter­change de­signs ($126 mil­lion).

Up­grades con­tin­ue on Sad­dle Road, Wright­son Road, Uri­ah But­ler, and South Trunk High­ways.

Ma­jor high­ways in­clude CRH Ex­ten­sion to Man­zanil­la ($155 mil­lion), Va­len­cia–To­co Road ($248.7 mil­lion), and Solomon Ho­choy Ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin ($351 mil­lion).

Nine­ty-three projects will re­pair land­slides, bridges, and rur­al roads, in­clud­ing the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of the Na­pari­ma–Ma­yaro Road.

A new High­ways In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem will en­able re­al-time mon­i­tor­ing and plan­ning, sup­port­ed by up­grad­ed op­er­a­tions of the Agua San­ta As­phalt Plant.

In­vest­ing in Bridges

The Bridge Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Pro­gramme con­tin­ues with sev­en ma­jor projects. Colo­nial and Pa­pourie Road bridges are un­der con­struc­tion; new bridges in Cara­pichaima, Ma­yaro, Williamsville, Va­len­cia, and Cou­va North will be­gin be­fore the end of the year.

De­liv­er­ing a Mod­ern and Con­nect­ed Trans­porta­tion Net­work

Through the new Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, we will im­ple­ment an am­bi­tious pro­gramme to mod­ernise pub­lic trans­port, traf­fic man­age­ment, and avi­a­tion. We will fi­nal­ly op­er­a­tionalise the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Ac­ci­dent Fund, first ap­proved in 2015 but nev­er en­act­ed, which will pro­vide re­lief to vic­tims of unin­sured dri­vers. At the same time, we are rolling out the Na­tion­al Trans­porta­tion Pol­i­cy to cut trav­el times and re­duce col­li­sions through bet­ter sig­nal equip­ment, back­up pow­er, and a mod­ern Traf­fic Man­age­ment Cen­tre.

The Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) will in­tro­duce elec­tric bus­es un­der a leas­ing pi­lot of 30 units by mid-2026 and ex­pand routes through a PPP with maxi-taxi op­er­a­tors to en­sure rur­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty. The In­tel­li­gent Pub­lic Trans­port So­lu­tion will fea­ture a com­muter app, e-tick­et­ing, and re­al-time sched­ules.

The A.N.R. Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port will be ful­ly op­er­a­tional by the sec­ond quar­ter of Fis­cal 2026, strength­en­ing To­ba­go’s tourism and po­si­tion­ing TT as a re­gion­al air hub with new bi­lat­er­al air ser­vice agree­ments across the Amer­i­c­as and Africa.

Strength­en­ing Coastal Pro­tec­tion

$298.9 mil­lion is al­lo­cat­ed to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties from coastal ero­sion. Work will com­mence at La­dy Hailes Shore­line, Granville, and Ota­heite, and new projects in Saly­bia, Mac­queripe, and Mara­cas Bay will safe­guard tourist and fish­ing sites.

Sup­port­ing Ports and Mar­itime De­vel­op­ment

The Port Au­thor­i­ty will pro­cure a third ship-to-shore crane and re­fur­bish the CARI­COM Wharf to boost re­gion­al trade. Re­moval of ship­wrecks in Ch­aguara­mas, Clax­ton Bay, and San Fer­nan­do will im­prove nav­i­ga­tion and safe­ty.

Mod­ernising Health Care In­fra­struc­ture

Mr Speak­er, bet­ter health care is cen­tral to our agen­da. The Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty will fi­nal­ly open, fo­cus­ing on chil­dren’s health. The San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tal will add a new catheter­i­sa­tion lab, the POS Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block will be op­er­a­tional by March 2026, and the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal com­mis­sioned this fis­cal year.

A $35 mil­lion re­fur­bish­ment pro­gramme and $40 mil­lion in fa­cil­i­ty up­grades will mod­ernise wards and sys­tems. $60 mil­lion will pro­cure crit­i­cal equip­ment in­clud­ing CT scan­ners, X-ray units, and sur­gi­cal tow­ers. To cut sur­gi­cal wait-times, $20 mil­lion is ear­marked for car­diac care, $100 mil­lion for dial­y­sis, and $10 mil­lion for or­tho­pe­dic and eye surg­eries. Den­tal ser­vices will be re­vived through new equip­ment in 37 clin­ics.

Mr. Speak­er we will cut wait-times for life-sav­ing pro­ce­dures be­cause faster care saves lives!

Pub­lic Util­i­ties

Mr. Speak­er, ac­cess to re­li­able util­i­ties is a fun­da­men­tal right. Be­tween May and Ju­ly 2025, over $150 mil­lion was in­vest­ed in projects that im­proved ser­vice to house­holds na­tion­wide. Through the Util­i­ties As­sis­tance Pro­gramme, $7.2 mil­lion in wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty bill re­lief reached more than 12,000 fam­i­lies, and $1.8 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed for tanks and so­lar pan­els for rur­al house­holds.

$250 mil­lion will ex­pand rur­al elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and grid up­grades, in­stalling 8,000 LED street­lights to im­prove safe­ty and re­duce costs. Re­new­able en­er­gy projects worth $75 mil­lion will be­gin, ad­vanc­ing our clean-en­er­gy goals.

TSTT will in­vest $200 mil­lion to ex­pand fi­bre-to-home con­nec­tions and strength­en cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, while $2 mil­lion will fund youth en­tre­pre­neur­ship through YBTT.

Mr Speak­er, we made the strate­gic de­ci­sion to can­cel the WASA Trans­for­ma­tion Plan, pre­serv­ing 3,700 jobs and redi­rect­ing $30 mil­lion in sav­ings to crit­i­cal ser­vices. Wa­ter sup­ply has im­proved dra­mat­i­cal­ly in ar­eas long ne­glect­ed — Cara­pal (+1.5 mil­lion gal­lons per day), Navet (+600,000 gpd), Siparia (from every 9 days to 3 times week­ly), and Mara­cas Bay (now 5 days week­ly).

$300 mil­lion will re­place pipelines in Port of Spain, San Fer­nan­do, and Ari­ma. A $50 mil­lion smart-me­ter­ing project will im­prove billing ac­cu­ra­cy and re­duce loss­es.

Sup­port­ing Lo­cal and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment

Mr Speak­er, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is the face of the State in com­mu­ni­ties. The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Sec­tor Plan 2025–2030 will re­set mu­nic­i­pal de­liv­ery on four prin­ci­ples: ac­count­abil­i­ty, da­ta-dri­ven ex­e­cu­tion, re­silience, and cit­i­zen-fo­cused ser­vice.

Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units are be­ing equipped with boats, ear­ly-warn­ing sys­tems, and trained Com­mu­ni­ty Emer­gency Re­sponse Teams. Schools will play a role in pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion. We will strict­ly en­force lit­ter and dump­ing laws and mod­ernise penal­ties to de­ter of­fend­ers. Equip­ment pro­vid­ed by part­ners such as Japan and the Unit­ed Na­tions will help tack­le sar­gas­sum and coastal clean-up ef­forts.

Se­cur­ing the Fu­ture of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries

Strength­en­ing Crude Pro­duc­tion

Mr Speak­er, en­er­gy re­mains the back­bone of our econ­o­my. In April 2025, crude and con­den­sate out­put av­er­aged 52,357 bar­rels per day, ris­ing to 55,257 by Au­gust — an in­crease of near­ly 3,000 bar­rels. Gains came from bpTT, EOG Re­sources, and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, sup­port­ed by the Men­to De­vel­op­ment project that achieved first pro­duc­tion in May.

Her­itage is ex­pand­ing its drilling cam­paign, and Peren­co’s ac­qui­si­tion of shal­low-wa­ter as­sets from bpTT and Wood­side is ex­pect­ed to boost ma­ture-field out­put.

Nat­ur­al Gas Ex­pan­sion

Gas pro­duc­tion rose from 2.41 to 2.73 bil­lion cu­bic feet per day be­tween April and May 2025, dri­ven by bpTT’s Cypre Phase 1 and the Men­to field. Phase 2 of Cypre will fur­ther strength­en sup­ply.

For­eign in­vest­ment in up­stream re­mains ro­bust — US$2.2 bil­lion pro­ject­ed in 2025, ris­ing to US$2.5 bil­lion in 2026. The Deep­wa­ter Bid Round of­fer­ing 26 blocks closed with four bids, and a US$42.5 mil­lion PSC was signed with Exxon­Mo­bil for TTUD-1, mark­ing re­newed in­ter­na­tion­al con­fi­dence.

We are ad­vanc­ing en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion with Grena­da, Suri­name, and Guyana on ex­plo­ration, re­new­able en­er­gy, and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing. Ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Trinidad Steel Com­pa­ny for a new gas con­tract will restart steel pro­duc­tion, cre­at­ing jobs and re­viv­ing ex­ports.

Re­new­able En­er­gy: Tran­si­tion­ing to a Low-Car­bon Fu­ture

Mr Speak­er, as we max­imise oil and gas re­turns, we re­main com­mit­ted to re­new­ables. Our goal is a 15% emis­sions re­duc­tion by 2030. The 92.2-megawatt Brechin Cas­tle so­lar plant be­gan de­liv­er­ing green pow­er in Ju­ly 2025 and will be the largest in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean when com­plet­ed.

We are fi­nal­is­ing a Re­new­able En­er­gy Pol­i­cy and pro­gress­ing to­ward wind de­vel­op­ment — with 2.75 gi­gawatts on­shore and 32 gi­gawatts off­shore iden­ti­fied. The Off­shore Wind Re­source As­sess­ment Pro­gramme, ex­pand­ed in Ju­ly 2025, will pro­vide bank­able da­ta by 2026.

We are al­so lay­ing the foun­da­tion for a Green Hy­dro­gen Econ­o­my, aim­ing to scale to 25 gi­gawatts of off­shore wind and 1.5 mil­lion tonnes of hy­dro­gen by 2044, reach­ing 4 mil­lion tonnes by 2065.

This Gov­ern­ment is not mere­ly man­ag­ing the sec­tor; we are shap­ing its fu­ture.

Eco­nom­ic Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion: A New Re­al­i­ty – Agri­cul­ture, Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Tourism

En­cour­ag­ing Agri­cul­ture

Mr Speak­er, agri­cul­ture is cen­tral to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and food se­cu­ri­ty. It cur­rent­ly con­tributes less than 1% of GDP — a strate­gic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty we must re­verse. We will align with CARI­COM’s “25 by 2025” ini­tia­tive to re­duce food im­ports by at least 25% by 2030 while pro­mot­ing agro-ex­ports.

Key mea­sures in­clude:

A 3-Year Pri­or­i­ty Com­modi­ties Pro­gramme for 15 high-de­mand prod­ucts, with an­nu­al fo­cus on three crops and one live­stock cat­e­go­ry.

Cli­mate-re­silient farm­ing and crop in­sur­ance, green­house in­cen­tives, and wa­ter-har­vest­ing sys­tems.

In­te­gra­tion of agri­cul­ture in­to schools and youth en­tre­pre­neur­ship through the Youth Agri­cul­tur­al Fund.

Ex­port growth in fine-flavour co­coa, Moru­ga pep­per, and aqua­cul­ture, dou­bling agro-ex­ports by 2028.

$793.7 mil­lion will be in­vest­ed in in­fra­struc­ture, ir­ri­ga­tion, fish­eries, land de­vel­op­ment, and agri-tech ini­tia­tives. Smart Agri­cul­ture and AI Farm­ing will in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy and self-suf­fi­cien­cy, tar­get­ing $1 bil­lion in ex­ports next fis­cal year. We are dis­trib­ut­ing long-promised land leas­es to for­mer Ca­roni work­ers and de­vel­op­ing res­i­den­tial lots at Ca­roni and Or­ange Grove.

Sup­port­ing Man­u­fac­tur­ing and SMEs

Mr Speak­er, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion de­pends on com­pet­i­tive busi­ness­es. A new Ex­port Acad­e­my, in part­ner­ship with the TT Cham­ber and the IDB, will train SMEs in trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, fi­nanc­ing, e-com­merce, and glob­al mar­ket­ing — build­ing 100 ex­port-ready firms each year.

The EX­IM­BANK will re­turn to its prop­er man­date of sup­port­ing ex­porters through for­eign-cur­ren­cy loans. For the first year, re­pay­ments will be made in TT dol­lars, then in the cur­ren­cy of the loan. Trans­par­ent el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria and pub­lic re­port­ing will en­sure fair­ness, es­pe­cial­ly for SMEs.

Fa­cil­i­tat­ing Trade and In­vest­ment

We will launch a Na­tion­al Reg­istry of Ex­porters and a pa­tri­ot­ic “Buy Lo­cal, Build Trin­ba­go” cam­paign to keep wealth at home. Par­tial-scope agree­ments are be­ing ad­vanced with In­dia and West Africa.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ma­rine sec­tor will be repo­si­tioned as a South­ern Caribbean yacht­ing and ma­rine ser­vices hub. Sim­pli­fied im­mi­gra­tion and cus­toms pro­ce­dures, dig­i­tal clear­ances, and PPP-dri­ven mari­nas and su­per-yacht fa­cil­i­ties will ex­pand tourism and in­vest­ment.

The in­vest­ment tar­gets are clear: US3bil­lionovert­woyearsan­dUS9 bil­lion in five years, aimed at cre­at­ing 3,000 jobs. Stan­dard­ised in­vestor doc­u­men­ta­tion, stronger in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion, and bet­ter af­ter­care will en­sure de­liv­ery.

Idle or dis­tressed state as­sets will be re­pur­posed for rev­enue, in­clud­ing the re­de­vel­op­ment of the long-aban­doned Ca­roni Rac­ing Com­plex in­to a world-class con­ven­tion cen­tre. Town and Coun­try Plan­ning will be re-en­gi­neered for end-to-end dig­i­tal pro­cess­ing with­in 30 work­ing days, with na­tion­al e-KYC for easy ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go

Mr Speak­er, we can­not build growth with­out part­ner­ship. The new Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PSOTT) will unite cham­bers and as­so­ci­a­tions to co­or­di­nate in­vest­ment and dri­ve in­no­va­tion.

Pro­mot­ing Trade Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion

In Fis­cal 2026, stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions will in­form sec­toral ex­port strate­gies. We will im­ple­ment the Na­tion­al E-Com­merce Strat­e­gy 2025–2030, fi­nalise the Na­tion­al Con­sumer Pol­i­cy, and op­er­a­tionalise the TT–Chile Par­tial Scope Trade Agree­ment, grant­i­ng du­ty-free ac­cess for 213 prod­ucts im­me­di­ate­ly and 54 more with­in three years.

The Or­ange Econ­o­my/ Cre­ative In­dus­tries

We will ex­pand our cul­tur­al in­dus­tries through a Cre­ative Val­ue-Chain Fund sup­port­ing film, fash­ion, de­sign, and mu­sic. En­hanced IP pro­tec­tion and du­ty con­ces­sions will em­pow­er cre­atives and gen­er­ate thou­sands of jobs.

Grow­ing Tourism

Tourism re­mains a high-growth sec­tor. We will de­vel­op new prod­ucts in the med­ical, sport, and cul­tur­al tourism sec­tors; fa­cil­i­tate the com­ple­tion of ho­tels, in­clud­ing Four Points, Hamp­ton Inn, and Mara­cas Bay; and ad­vance To­ba­go’s Mar­riott and Ele­phant Tree Re­sorts. The vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence will be mod­ernised through se­cure cash­less pay­ments and im­proved con­nec­tiv­i­ty. A year-round “Car­ni­val City” and the Tur­tle Tourism Cap­i­tal ini­tia­tive will in­te­grate cul­ture, con­ser­va­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fit. Di­rect US flights to To­ba­go will strength­en ac­cess, and in­cen­tives for glob­al ho­tel brands will spur for­eign in­vest­ment and job cre­ation.

Ad­vanc­ing So­cial Sec­tor In­vest­ment: In­vest­ing in Peo­ple, In­vest­ing in Progress

Mr Speak­er, a na­tion’s re­al wealth lies in its peo­ple. Growth means lit­tle if it does not im­prove lives and ex­pand op­por­tu­ni­ty. Through our Peo­ple-Cen­tred De­vel­op­ment Frame­work, we are restor­ing dig­ni­ty, eq­ui­ty, and hope by in­vest­ing in sport, ed­u­ca­tion, hous­ing, and health­care so that every cit­i­zen can rise.

Sup­port­ing Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment

Work­ing with the World Bank, we are re­form­ing so­cial pro­tec­tion to en­sure that as­sis­tance reach­es those most in need. Ben­e­fi­cia­ry da­ta are be­ing in­te­grat­ed, pay­ments digi­tised, and com­pli­ance strength­ened.

Be­tween May and Ju­ly 2025, Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sions sup­port­ed 115,252 per­sons ($1.12 bil­lion); Pub­lic As­sis­tance Grants aid­ed 14,000 ($65 mil­lion); Food Sup­port reached 12,700 homes ($23 mil­lion); and Dis­abil­i­ty Grants served 25,600 cit­i­zens ($154 mil­lion). An­oth­er $46 mil­lion was chan­nelled through NGOs to de­liv­er spe­cialised ser­vices.

Youth De­vel­op­ment

Our youth are the en­gine of na­tion­al re­new­al. Pro­grammes such as YouTEC have trained hun­dreds in cos­me­tol­ogy, events, and culi­nary arts, grant­i­ng CVQ cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Health­care, drilling-rig, plumb­ing, and tech­ni­cal train­ing have cre­at­ed new ca­reer path­ways. The re­fur­bish­ment of Youth De­vel­op­ment Cen­tres in Chatham, Per­sto Praesto, El Do­ra­do, and Ch­aguara­mas will ex­pand the ca­pac­i­ty for 250 res­i­den­tial trainees. The Re­tiree Ado­les­cent Part­ner­ship and the Na­tion­al Youth Pol­i­cy 2026–2030 will guide fu­ture ini­tia­tives in train­ing, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and lead­er­ship. A new Con­struc­tion-Sec­tor Skills Pro­gramme will cer­ti­fy 250 young peo­ple for em­ploy­ment and small-busi­ness cre­ation in this vi­tal in­dus­try.

Mak­ing Hous­ing More Af­ford­able

Mr Speak­er, hous­ing is both a so­cial ne­ces­si­ty and an eco­nom­ic dri­ver. We have re­formed the Home Im­prove­ment Grant Pro­gramme—digi­tis­ing ap­pli­ca­tions and dou­bling the num­ber of grants de­liv­ered to 1,200 in FY 2026. Since tak­ing of­fice, 208 Home Im­prove­ment and 82 Home Con­struc­tion Grants, to­talling $8.2 mil­lion, have been is­sued.

One thou­sand four hun­dred six­ty-one units are un­der con­struc­tion in Ari­ma, D’Abadie, and Cou­va, while 35 HVIP projects are com­plet­ed and 44 are un­der­way. Quar­ter­ly HDC per­for­mance re­ports will now be pub­lished. Our tar­get is 20,000 af­ford­able homes with­in two years through PPPs and in­no­v­a­tive de­signs. We will launch First-Time Home­own­er Grants, low-in­ter­est loans for young fam­i­lies, and re­vive the Land-for-the-Land­less Pro­gramme. The Foun­da­tion-for-Life Pro­gramme will help sin­gle moth­ers and se­niors with rent-to-own op­tions, while in­clu­sive hous­ing at Ed­in­burgh 500 will serve per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

Health­care Re­form

Mr Speak­er, good health is the foun­da­tion of pros­per­i­ty. Amend­ments to the Chil­dren’s Life Fund Act now cov­er life-lim­it­ing con­di­tions such as sick­le-cell dis­ease and rare can­cers, en­sur­ing chil­dren re­ceive time­ly care. Ex­tend­ed-hours health cen­tres now op­er­ate in 12 com­mu­ni­ties, re­duc­ing hos­pi­tal con­ges­tion. The CDAP Pro­gramme was mod­ernised with new life-sav­ing med­i­cines for hy­per­ten­sion, men­tal health, and autism, ben­e­fit­ing 300,000 cit­i­zens.

Digi­ti­sa­tion is ad­vanc­ing through a Na­tion­al Health Man­age­ment In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem with a se­cure Health ID, en­abling seam­less ac­cess to records. We will al­so leg­is­late a Med­ical Mal­prac­tice Court, No-Fault Com­pen­sa­tion Fund, and a re­vised Pa­tients’ Char­ter.

Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing

Mr Speak­er, ed­u­ca­tion must pre­pare every child for a dig­i­tal, in­clu­sive fu­ture. Spe­cial-needs stu­dents now re­ceive ded­i­cat­ed ex­am con­ces­sions; 13 part­ner schools have been strength­ened with $11 mil­lion in sup­port. With UNICEF, we launched uni­ver­sal screen­ing for chil­dren aged 4–6 to de­tect learn­ing chal­lenges ear­ly.

Eigh­teen thou­sand de­vices are be­ing dis­trib­uted to Form One stu­dents for $146 mil­lion, ac­com­pa­nied by AI train­ing for 10,800 teach­ers. The Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme up­grad­ed 279 schools, recog­nised as one of the most suc­cess­ful in re­cent years. To tack­le vi­o­lence, 95 Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers are now sta­tioned in 50 high-risk schools. Vi­sion and phys­i­cal screen­ing pro­grammes will con­tin­ue na­tion­wide. A new Lit­er­a­cy and Nu­mer­a­cy Se­ries in 2026 will ad­dress learn­ing gaps, while $10 mil­lion will mod­ernise net­works in 456 pri­ma­ry schools.

The GATE and High­er Ed­u­ca­tion Loan Pro­grammes re­main cen­tral to ac­cess, with 345 bur­saries ($52 mil­lion) award­ed this year. The UWI Debe Cam­pus will be op­er­a­tionalised for Law, Foren­sics, IT, and AI train­ing—re­viv­ing South Trinidad’s aca­d­e­m­ic po­ten­tial.

Sup­port­ing Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment

Mr Speak­er, sport dri­ves uni­ty and na­tion­al pride. Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of pools in Mal­oney, Mor­vant, Tu­na­puna, Biche, and Rio Claro con­tin­ues along­side up­grades at na­tion­al sta­dia. New com­mu­ni­ty grounds and the Elite Ath­lete Gym at Tacarigua will en­hance per­for­mance and health. Schol­ar­ships through UTT and part­ner­ships with GC Fos­ter (Ja­maica) and In­dia are de­vel­op­ing coach­ing and sport ad­min­is­tra­tion, in­clud­ing women’s crick­et. The Samuel Badree Crick­et Acad­e­my fa­cil­i­ty at UTT San Fer­nan­do will serve as a na­tion­al train­ing base. Pro­grammes like JA­VA Crick­et (2,000 youths), With These Hands, and Boss La­dy equip com­mu­ni­ties with prac­ti­cal and en­tre­pre­neur­ial skills. Ten new com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres with full ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty fea­tures will open in FY 2026.

Build­ing a Safe and Se­cure Coun­try: Jus­tice, Pro­tec­tion and Peace of Mind

Mr Speak­er, cit­i­zens de­serve safe­ty and peace. Af­ter a decade of record crime and ne­glect, we are tak­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion through a Na­tion­al Safe­ty Strat­e­gy based on in­tel­li­gence, tech­nol­o­gy, and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment.

Re­form­ing Jus­tice

The Min­istry of Jus­tice has been re-es­tab­lished to co­or­di­nate the jus­tice chain. The Home In­va­sion, Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty Bill 2025 will crim­i­nalise home in­va­sion and af­firm cit­i­zens’ right to de­fend them­selves. A Ju­di­cia­ry Chan­cel­lor will man­age case flow, free­ing the Chief Jus­tice to fo­cus on ju­rispru­dence. We will ex­pand court­rooms in Ch­agua­nas, Rio Claro, San­gre Grande, and Diego Mar­tin and en­shrine a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a time­ly tri­al. Vic­tim sup­port will in­clude resti­tu­tion, job place­ment, and hous­ing. The DPP and Pub­lic De­fend­er Of­fices will be strength­ened.

Em­pow­er­ing Polic­ing

We have re­stored lead­er­ship to the TTPS with a new Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and ab­sorbed 800 Spe­cial Re­serve Of­fi­cers to ad­dress staff short­ages. Six­ty-sev­en new ve­hi­cles ($23 mil­lion) and ad­di­tion­al tran­sit units have ex­pand­ed pa­trol reach. The Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre is be­ing rein­te­grat­ed un­der the TTPS; Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice and mo­bile units are ex­pand­ing. Up­dat­ed E999 sys­tems and in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions will im­prove re­spon­sive­ness.

Build­ing a bet­ter Prison Sys­tem

Five hun­dred new of­fi­cers are be­ing re­cruit­ed. Fa­cil­i­ties are re­ceiv­ing san­i­ta­tion, trans­port, and se­cu­ri­ty up­grades, in­clud­ing an­ti-drone tech and cell-jam­mers. The 268-year-old Port of Spain Prison is be­ing de­com­mis­sioned, re­placed by a mod­ern cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty fo­cused on re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Fire Ser­vice

The Fire Ser­vice is be­ing re­in­forced with 280 aux­il­iary of­fi­cers, 225 new breath­ing ap­pa­ra­tus, and sta­tion up­grades in Savonet­ta, San­ta Cruz, and San­gre Grande. New ve­hi­cles and ther­mal-imag­ing equip­ment will boost readi­ness.

We will re­form firearms laws for re­spon­si­ble own­er­ship, pro­mote re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion over in­car­cer­a­tion for non-vi­o­lent of­fend­ers, ex­pand CCTV cov­er­age, strength­en port se­cu­ri­ty, and es­tab­lish a foren­sic sci­ence com­plex and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty train­ing cen­tre at UWI Debe.

Gov­ern­ment Ef­fi­cien­cy through Dig­i­tal Tech­nol­o­gy: Smarter Sys­tems, Bet­ter Ser­vice

Mr Speak­er, we are trans­form­ing gov­ern­ment through dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and AI. Long lines and pa­per de­lays will soon be his­to­ry.

Digi­ti­sa­tion of Gov­ern­ment Ser­vices and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence

Our na­tion­al dig­i­tal as­sis­tant, Anan­si, now de­liv­ers in­stant guid­ance on pub­lic ser­vices 24/7. Every cit­i­zen will soon re­ceive a se­cure dig­i­tal ID for sin­gle-lo­gin ac­cess to gov­ern­ment por­tals—al­low­ing tax­es, li­cens­es, and busi­ness reg­is­tra­tions to be com­plet­ed on­line in min­utes. Elec­tron­ic health records will uni­fy pa­tient da­ta across fa­cil­i­ties; ed­u­ca­tion plat­forms will in­tro­duce smart class­rooms, e-text­books, and AI tu­tors; and po­lice will have re­al-time ac­cess to records through in­no­v­a­tive polic­ing sys­tems. A Na­tion­al AI Re­search and In­no­va­tion Hub will train youth in da­ta sci­ence, soft­ware en­gi­neer­ing, and con­tent cre­ation, en­abling cit­i­zens to earn from the dig­i­tal and cre­ative economies.

Na­tion­al Dig­i­tal Pay­ment Sys­tem

Mr Speak­er, per­haps the sin­gle most trans­for­ma­tive ini­tia­tive of this Ad­min­is­tra­tion is the Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NPIC-TT). For decades, cit­i­zens have had to walk from min­istry to min­istry, stand in lines, and pay in cash to con­duct rou­tine gov­ern­ment busi­ness. Bil­lions in trans­ac­tions were frag­ment­ed across hun­dreds of ac­counts, prone to de­lay, er­ror, and leak­age. That in­ef­fi­cient era is com­ing to an end.

The Na­tion­al Pay­ment and In­no­va­tion Com­pa­ny in­tro­duces a uni­fied plat­form that will han­dle all Gov­ern­ment col­lec­tions and dis­burse­ments — from li­cens­ing fees and tax­es to so­cial grants and pen­sion pay­ments. Every min­istry, every agency, and every statu­to­ry body will con­nect to this sin­gle pay­ment back­bone.

Mr Speak­er, this is not just a tech­nol­o­gy up­grade — it is a rev­o­lu­tion in pub­lic fi­nan­cial man­age­ment. With this sys­tem, every cent col­lect­ed or paid by the State can be tracked in re­al time. This means faster rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, stronger over­sight, and the near elim­i­na­tion of fraud, pil­fer­age, and bu­reau­crat­ic de­lay.

Cit­i­zens will have mul­ti­ple ways to pay — on­line, on their phones, at self-ser­vice kiosks, or at over-the-counter ter­mi­nals — us­ing deb­it cards, cred­it cards, vouch­ers, or dig­i­tal wal­lets. Every trans­ac­tion will be in­stant, se­cure, and record­ed. It will no longer mat­ter whether a cit­i­zen lives in Moru­ga, To­co, or To­ba­go; every ser­vice will be avail­able at their fin­ger­tips.

This is a his­toric shift to­ward con­ve­nience, eq­ui­ty, and ac­count­abil­i­ty. The NPIC-TT will not on­ly save mil­lions in ad­min­is­tra­tive costs but will al­so ex­pand gov­ern­ment rev­enue through bet­ter com­pli­ance and au­dit trails. It will make life eas­i­er for the pub­lic, strength­en con­fi­dence in gov­ern­ment, and build a trans­par­ent bridge be­tween cit­i­zens and the State. It is al­so an en­abler of our broad­er na­tion­al agen­da — link­ing min­istries, banks, and ser­vice providers; in­te­grat­ing e-gov­ern­ment ser­vices; and cre­at­ing a foun­da­tion for in­no­va­tion. With the NPIC-TT, the State it­self be­comes dig­i­tal — ef­fi­cient, re­spon­sive, and peo­ple-cen­tred.

Sup­port­ing To­ba­go’s De­vel­op­ment Agen­da

I now turn to To­ba­go. In pur­suit of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) vi­sion to make "To­ba­go the great­est lit­tle is­land on the plan­et." The THA de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed the Strate­gic De­vel­op­ment Plan­ning Path­way (2025-2045). This new de­vel­op­ment ar­chi­tec­ture will guide To­ba­go's so­cio-eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion, in­form­ing the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment pro­grams and projects. The in­sti­tu­tion­al strat­e­gy, known as strate­gic se­lec­tiv­i­ty, will di­rect so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment pro­gram­ming and cap­i­tal in­vest­ments, en­sur­ing that ef­forts are both tar­get­ed and ef­fec­tive.

The Fis­cal 2026 Bud­get State­ment pre­sent­ed by the THA iden­ti­fies the goal of plac­ing To­ba­go on a fast track to so­cioe­co­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty while se­cur­ing the is­land's fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty. The tar­get­ed eco­nom­ic growth pro­gramme for Fis­cal 2026 is specif­i­cal­ly de­signed to fos­ter sus­tain­able job cre­ation, boost GDP, en­hance pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture, im­prove pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery, and in­crease liv­ing stan­dards.

To achieve these goals, the THA has pro­posed tar­get­ed cap­i­tal in­vest­ments in the fol­low­ing crit­i­cal ar­eas:

Tourism and the Cre­ative Sec­tor – To­ba­go’s tourism re­mains a vi­tal cor­ner­stone of the econ­o­my. There is im­mense po­ten­tial in the pris­tine nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment, rich cul­tur­al her­itage, and vi­brant fes­ti­vals. THA in­tends to in­vest in prod­uct de­vel­op­ment, des­ti­na­tion brand­ing, and pro­mot­ing high-end ac­com­mo­da­tions. It al­so aims to sup­port a sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty-based ap­proach, pro­mot­ing the unique cul­tur­al her­itage through dig­i­tal con­tent, her­itage tours, and train­ing pro­grammes. These strate­gic in­vest­ments will not on­ly cre­ate di­rect jobs but will al­so stim­u­late growth across re­lat­ed sec­tors such as trans­porta­tion and agri­cul­ture, ul­ti­mate­ly re­vi­tal­is­ing the en­tire econ­o­my.

Agri­cul­ture – To­ba­go is com­mit­ted to build­ing pro­duc­tive, safe, and sus­tain­able food sys­tems. The THA’s strat­e­gy in­cludes a Mega-farm­ing Pro­gramme to en­cour­age in­no­va­tion and at­tract agri-en­tre­pre­neurs, strength­en­ing the food se­cu­ri­ty and po­si­tion­ing agri­cul­ture as a vi­able ca­reer path. To fur­ther sup­port farm­ers, the THA is in­vest­ing in lo­cal seed banks to pre­serve in­dige­nous crops, de­vel­op­ing ef­fi­cient ir­ri­ga­tion sys­tems, and pro­vid­ing ex­ten­sive train­ing on mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al tech­niques.

In­fra­struc­ture - The THA is com­mit­ting to sig­nif­i­cant­ly up­grad­ing pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture. This in­cludes en­hanc­ing road net­works, pub­lic util­i­ties, pub­lic hous­ing, and coastal pro­tec­tion sys­tems. Up­grades will al­so in­clude en­hanc­ing air­lift con­nec­tiv­i­ty with both Trinidad and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets to ac­cel­er­ate so­cioe­co­nom­ic growth, cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, and en­hance the is­land's over­all pros­per­i­ty.

Dig­i­tal Tech­nolo­gies – The THA plans to in­te­grate dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy in­to its busi­ness op­er­a­tions, gov­er­nance, and dai­ly life. This in­vest­ment will not on­ly en­hance pro­duc­tiv­i­ty through au­toma­tion and AI but al­so break down ge­o­graph­ic bar­ri­ers, un­lock new av­enues for in­no­va­tion, and im­prove re­source al­lo­ca­tion.

Hu­man Cap­i­tal De­vel­op­ment, Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing – to ac­cel­er­ate To­ba­go's growth, a two-pronged strat­e­gy that in­cludes both im­me­di­ate and long-term in­vest­ments to cre­ate a skilled and adapt­able work­force, en­sur­ing that To­ba­go's pop­u­la­tion is well-equipped to meet the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties of a dy­nam­ic fu­ture. To­ba­go’s Ed­u­ca­tion Re­form Pro­gramme will en­com­pass all lev­els from pre-school to ter­tiary, plac­ing a strong em­pha­sis on sup­port for stu­dents with spe­cial needs.

Mi­cro, Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es Sec­tor (MSMEs) – Mr Speak­er, over 90 per cent of the is­land's busi­ness­es fall in­to this cat­e­go­ry. MSMEs are cru­cial for cre­at­ing jobs and re­duc­ing the re­liance on the gov­ern­ment sec­tor for em­ploy­ment. Ini­tia­tives such as the To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Fund and the new­ly launched Loan Guar­an­tee Pro­gramme will help busi­ness­es grow, cre­ate jobs for mar­gin­alised groups, and ul­ti­mate­ly build a more eq­ui­table and re­silient econ­o­my for all To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Health­care – To­ba­go con­tin­ues to ac­quire new di­ag­nos­tic tech­nol­o­gy, mod­ernise hos­pi­tals in Scar­bor­ough and Rox­bor­ough, and ul­ti­mate­ly in­crease the life ex­pectan­cy of cit­i­zens. The THA in­tends to ex­pand the Scar­bor­ough and Rox­bor­ough hos­pi­tals to ac­com­mo­date bet­ter and meet the grow­ing needs of the pop­u­la­tion.

Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment – To­ba­go is en­sur­ing that the com­mu­ni­ties are safe and have ap­pro­pri­ate green and func­tion­ing so­cial in­fra­struc­ture to meet the needs of the cit­i­zens. The adap­ta­tion to cli­mate change will in­clude coastal pro­tec­tion and restora­tion, sus­tain­able wa­ter man­age­ment, and the build­ing of cli­mate-re­silient pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture.

Youth De­vel­op­ment and Sports – To­ba­go is fo­cus­ing on skill de­vel­op­ment, vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, build­ing an am­a­teur-to-pro­fes­sion­al sports pipeline, and youth in­tern­ship pro­grams. The Sport De­vel­op­ment Work Pro­gramme aims to mon­e­tise sport and out­door recre­ation and catal­yse in­vest­ment in sport in­fra­struc­ture. The THA in­tends to lever­age sport to di­ver­si­fy tourism, led by a new sport tourism unit and sup­port­ed by key events such as the In­ter­na­tion­al Youth Crick­et Tour­na­ment and the In­ter­na­tion­al Div­ing Meet.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment – the THA has de­vel­oped a suite of ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing sub­sidised hous­ing, land af­ford­abil­i­ty schemes, rental as­sis­tance, and home im­prove­ment grants, to en­sure all To­bag­o­ni­ans have ac­cess to safe and af­ford­able hous­ing so­lu­tions.

Mr Speak­er, the min­i­mum share of the Na­tion­al Bud­get that should be al­lo­cat­ed to To­ba­go, as pre­scribed by the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Com­mis­sion, is 4.03 per cent. I recog­nised that this will be in­suf­fi­cient to achieve the ob­jec­tives I have just de­scribed. I have tak­en note of the Bud­get pro­posed by the THA and their de­vel­op­men­tal agen­da.

I am hap­py to an­nounce that in this fis­cal year, I am al­lo­cat­ing $2.96 bil­lion to the THA, which rep­re­sents a full 5 per cent of the Na­tion­al Bud­get. How­ev­er, that is not all. In ad­di­tion, a fur­ther $763 mil­lion will be spent by var­i­ous Min­istries on To­ba­go. In to­tal, then, the al­lo­ca­tion to To­ba­go for the Fis­cal Year 2026 will be $3.724 bil­lion, which equates to 6.3 per cent of the Na­tion­al Bud­get.

Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue and Ex­pen­di­ture

2025 Fis­cal Per­for­mance

Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly up­on as­sum­ing of­fice in April, it be­came ev­i­dent that we had in­her­it­ed a se­vere­ly dis­tressed fis­cal sit­u­a­tion – marked by col­laps­ing rev­enues, un­sus­tain­able ex­pen­di­ture, ris­ing debt and mount­ing ar­rears. Among these oblig­a­tions was a sub­stan­tial bill for salary ad­just­ments and ar­rears for of­fi­cers un­der the SRC. Faced with this re­al­i­ty, we had no choice but to seek to set­tle out­stand­ing oblig­a­tions left un­at­tend­ed by the pre­vi­ous Ad­min­is­tra­tion. Thus, we were forced to ap­pro­pri­ate an ad­di­tion­al $3.1 bil­lion in the Mid-Year Re­view of the Fis­cal 2025 Bud­get.

The pre­lim­i­nary out­turn for Fis­cal 2025 is for a deficit of $8.7 bil­lion with rev­enue of $50.6 bil­lion and ex­pen­di­ture of $59.3 bil­lion. This short­fall could have been far greater had we not act­ed swift­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to con­tin­ue spend­ing and strength­en rev­enue streams. In the fu­ture, we will pur­sue a path of fis­cal con­sol­i­da­tion and struc­tur­al re­form to break us free from the cy­cle of low growth, anaemic rev­enues, and high ex­pen­di­ture that has con­strained our econ­o­my for far too long.

Fis­cal 2025/2026 Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue and Ex­pen­di­ture

In light of the cri­sis that we met on as­sump­tion of of­fice, we im­me­di­ate­ly set out to put poli­cies and pro­grammes in place to mit­i­gate the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion. This is clear­ly demon­strat­ed in our first 150 days in of­fice. Our coun­try has faced the re­cur­ring chal­lenge of nav­i­gat­ing fluc­tu­a­tions in glob­al en­er­gy mar­kets. Vari­abil­i­ty in oil and gas prices has con­sis­tent­ly cre­at­ed un­cer­tain­ty around Gov­ern­ment rev­enues, re­quir­ing care­ful and re­spon­sive pol­i­cy­mak­ing. We recog­nise the risks of over-re­liance on the en­er­gy sec­tor, and we are tak­ing steps to­ward broad­er eco­nom­ic re­form. We main­tain close over­sight of in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy trends to help guide our fis­cal strat­e­gy.

Con­se­quent­ly, our oil price as­sump­tion for 2026 will be US$73.25 per bar­rel, com­pared with US77.80per­bar­relin2025;an­dour­nat­u­ral­gasprice­as­sump­tion­willbe∗∗US4.25 per MMB­tu**, com­pared with US$3.59 per MMB­tu in 2025.

As a re­sult of these com­mod­i­ty price es­ti­mates, we ex­pect:

To­tal Rev­enue $ 55.367 bil­lion

To­tal Ex­pen­di­ture $ 59.232 bil­lion

Fis­cal Deficit $ 3.865 bil­lion

The to­tal es­ti­mat­ed rev­enue of $55.367 bil­lion com­pris­es:

Oil rev­enue $ 11.254 bil­lion

Non-oil rev­enue $ 43.402 bil­lion

Cap­i­tal rev­enue $ 0.711 bil­lion

Mr Speak­er, you should note that the fis­cal deficit at $3.865 bil­lion is 2.17 per cent of GDP, again with­in the in­ter­na­tion­al bench­mark of 3 per cent.

Pur­suant to our Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Agen­da, the cen­tral Fis­cal 2026 al­lo­ca­tions are as fol­lows:

Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing $ 8.766 bil­lion

Health $ 8.214 bil­lion

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty $ 6.366 bil­lion

Pub­lic Util­i­ties $ 3.395 bil­lion

In­fra­struc­ture $ 1.943 bil­lion

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment $ 1.807 bil­lion

Trans­port $ 1.840 bil­lion

Agri­cul­ture $ 1.130 bil­lion

Hous­ing $ 0.662 bil­lion

Fis­cal and Oth­er Mea­sures

Fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty is the foun­da­tion of sus­tain­able growth. Key mea­sures in­clude:

Levy on the As­sets of Com­mer­cial Banks and In­sur­ance Com­pa­nies Op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go

Com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, due to their large size, prof­itabil­i­ty and cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion, have re­port­ed sus­tained earn­ings, high liq­uid­i­ty ra­tios and strong as­set base growth. Con­ser­v­a­tive lend­ing prac­tices and favourable mon­e­tary con­di­tions have dri­ven these out­comes. De­spite this, the av­er­age cit­i­zen con­tin­ues to be sub­ject­ed to un­rea­son­ably high fees and near-ze­ro re­turns on their sav­ings and in­vest­ments. Against this back­drop, I pro­posed to in­tro­duce an As­set Levy of 0.25 per cent, which is to be charged against the as­sets of com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Im­por­tant­ly, the As­set Levy will not be ap­plied to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Act. This mea­sure will be­come ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1 2026, and is ex­pect­ed to con­tribute $575 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly to rev­enues.

Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge

In re­cent times, there has been an ex­plo­sion of un­reg­is­tered com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial rental prop­er­ties. Many of these land­lords have been avoid­ing pay­ing their fair share of tax­es. This con­tributes to sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue loss and a lack of re­li­able da­ta to sup­port pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment. The in­tro­duc­tion of this Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge, based on ac­tu­al rental in­come, will broad­en the tax rev­enue base, pro­mot­ing fair­ness, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. This mea­sure re­quires all land­lords to reg­is­ter with the Board of In­land Rev­enue and pay a one-time reg­is­tra­tion fee of $2,500.00. The sur­charge will be ap­plied as fol­lows:

2.5 per cent of the gross an­nu­al rental in­come of $20,000.00 or less; and

3.5 per cent of the gross an­nu­al rental in­come ex­ceed­ing $20,000.00.

This mea­sure takes ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026, and is ex­pect­ed to yield a min­i­mum of $70 mil­lion from the one-time reg­is­tra­tion fee.

Elec­tric­i­ty Sur­charge

The Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es the in­tro­duc­tion of an Elec­tric­i­ty Sur­charge as a tar­get­ed fis­cal mea­sure to ad­dress the grow­ing cost of elec­tric­i­ty sub­si­dies and pro­mote ef­fi­cien­cy in en­er­gy use. The sur­charge will take the form of a fixed, bill-lev­el charge of $0.05 per kWh for Com­mer­cial Cus­tomers and In­dus­tri­al Cus­tomers. The pol­i­cy is de­signed to en­cour­age en­er­gy con­ser­va­tion, re­duce the Gov­ern­ment’s sub­sidy bur­den and gen­er­ate a pre­dictable rev­enue stream. It must be not­ed that our elec­tric­i­ty rates will re­main sub­stan­tial­ly be­low those of our trad­ing part­ners. Es­sen­tial pub­lic ser­vices such as schools, hos­pi­tals and street light­ing will be ex­empt­ed. At cur­rent con­sump­tion lev­els, this ini­tia­tive is es­ti­mat­ed to con­tribute an ad­di­tion­al $269 mil­lion to rev­enues. This mea­sure takes ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

In­crease in Fees, Charges and Ex­cise Du­ties

Mr Speak­er, the cost of ad­min­is­ter­ing and of­fer­ing pub­lic ser­vices in Trinidad and To­ba­go has risen sig­nif­i­cant­ly across Min­istries, De­part­ments and Agen­cies. Notwith­stand­ing, many ad­min­is­tra­tive charges, in­clud­ing li­cence and per­mit fees and pro­cess­ing charges, have re­mained un­changed, in some in­stances, for as long as 30 years. This places ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on the Con­sol­i­dat­ed Fund. Up­dat­ing the fee struc­tures in line with the cur­rent cost of do­ing busi­ness is there­fore nec­es­sary to en­sure cost-re­flec­tiv­i­ty, fair­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, while al­so safe­guard­ing ser­vice qual­i­ty and en­abling mod­erni­sa­tion. It is im­por­tant to note that 80 per cent of the pro­ject­ed rev­enue in­creas­es are at­trib­ut­able to Cus­toms Du­ties on Rum and Spir­its, Beer and To­bac­co prod­ucts. There­fore, the fol­low­ing amend­ed du­ties are pro­posed:

Ex­ist­ing Pro­posed

Rum and Spir­its (By per cent of Al­co­hol) $79.25

Beer (by grav­i­ty of beer) $5.14

Cig­a­rettes (per pack of 20) $5.26

Ex­port to Sheets

In­clud­ed in the list of fees to be amend­ed are:

Ex­ist­ing Pro­posed

Con­tain­er Pro­cess­ing Fees $525

Cus­toms De­c­la­ra­tion Trans­ac­tion User Fee $40

En­vi­ron­men­tal Tyre Tax $20

Wild An­i­mals and Birds $100

Ex­port to Sheets

These mea­sures will con­tribute an ad­di­tion­al $1 bil­lion to rev­enues. Mr Speak­er, the in­crease in Cus­toms Du­ties on Rum and Spir­its, Beer and Cig­a­rettes will take im­me­di­ate ef­fect. The in­crease in oth­er Fees, Charges, and Li­cences will take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

Cus­toms Du­ties on Lux­u­ry Elec­tric Cars

Mr Speak­er, the con­ces­sion for elec­tric ve­hi­cles has been abused. Da­ta re­veals that sig­nif­i­cant for­eign ex­change has been used to im­port high-end elec­tric ve­hi­cles, which at­tract no Cus­toms Du­ty, Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Tax and Val­ue-Added Tax. We recog­nise the im­por­tance of elec­tric ve­hi­cles in re­duc­ing car­bon emis­sions and pro­pose ad­just­ing the ap­plic­a­ble tax­a­tion regime to pre­serve re­lief lev­els for mid to low­er-priced ve­hi­cles. Ac­cord­ing­ly, I pro­pose the fol­low­ing on ve­hi­cles whose CIF val­ue ex­ceeds $400,000:

a rate of du­ty of 10 per cent;

VAT of 12.5 per cent; and

A tiered rate of Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Tax ap­plic­a­ble to the Elec­tric Mo­tor Size will be ap­plied on ve­hi­cles whose CIF val­ue ex­ceeds $400,000.

At cur­rent de­mand, this ini­tia­tive will con­tribute an ad­di­tion­al $40 mil­lion to rev­enues. This mea­sure takes ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

Tax­a­tion on Sin­gle-Use Plas­tics

Mr Speak­er, this Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment. Sin­gle-use plas­tics con­tribute heav­i­ly to clogged wa­ter­ways, land and ma­rine pol­lu­tion, and over­bur­dened waste man­age­ment sys­tems; ul­ti­mate­ly harm­ing pub­lic health, bio­di­ver­si­ty and the econ­o­my. I pro­pose to in­tro­duce a 5 per cent tax on the CIF val­ue of these prod­ucts at the point of im­por­ta­tion. The pro­ceeds will be ear­marked to sup­port na­tion­al re­cy­cling pro­grammes, waste man­age­ment ini­tia­tives and pub­lic en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion. This mea­sure will take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

Es­tab­lish­ment of a Re­al Es­tate In­vest­ment Trust in Trinidad and To­ba­go

Mr Speak­er, in Fis­cal 2026, we will es­tab­lish a State-Spon­sored Re­al Es­tate In­vest­ment Trust (RE­IT), a land­mark ini­tia­tive to de­moc­ra­tise state-owned as­sets, strength­en and di­ver­si­fy our cap­i­tal mar­ket and broad­en pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in na­tion­al wealth cre­ation. This is an­oth­er bold step to un­lock new av­enues of non-debt fi­nanc­ing. Through this ve­hi­cle, high-val­ue in­come-gen­er­at­ing prop­er­ties such as land, of­fice build­ings and com­mer­cial in­fra­struc­ture will be trans­ferred in­to a pro­fes­sion­al­ly man­aged RE­IT. Shares will be list­ed on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change, al­low­ing both or­di­nary and in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors to earn reg­u­lar div­i­dends from re­al es­tate. At the same time, the State re­tains a strate­gic stake in these as­sets. A High-Lev­el Tech­ni­cal Com­mit­tee will be ap­point­ed to guide this process for greater trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. Mr Speak­er, this po­si­tion puts Trinidad and To­ba­go as a re­gion­al pi­o­neer in in­no­v­a­tive fi­nanc­ing and em­pow­ers our cit­i­zens to share di­rect­ly in the pros­per­i­ty of the na­tion. Giv­en the healthy do­mes­tic in­vestor ap­petite, this mea­sure is ex­pect­ed to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the Gov­ern­ment’s rev­enue stream.

NIF Bond

Mr Speak­er, in Fis­cal 2026, the Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIF) will launch a $1 bil­lion NIF Bond. Mr Speak­er, this is yet an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty pro­vid­ed by this Gov­ern­ment to af­ford or­di­nary cit­i­zens, small busi­ness­es and in­sti­tu­tions the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­vest and build per­son­al wealth, in a safe, tax-free en­vi­ron­ment with­out in­creas­ing pub­lic debt. This Bond will be backed by 21 per cent of the share­hold­ing of First Cit­i­zens Group Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (FCGFH) val­ued at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.0 bil­lion, while the Gov­ern­ment re­tains In­di­rect and Ben­e­fi­cial Own­er­ship of the ma­jor­i­ty of FCGFH at 60.11 per cent. This Bond will be is­sued in the sec­ond quar­ter of Fis­cal 2026.

Penal­ties on Of­fences

To en­sure stricter ad­her­ence to the law, we pro­pose more rig­or­ous con­se­quences for non-com­pli­ance. Con­se­quent­ly, the fol­low­ing is pro­posed:

Ex­ist­ing Pro­posed

En­vi­ron­men­tal Tyre Tax $3,000.00

Ap­pli­ca­tion for Reg­is­tra­tion of a Pes­ti­cide $2,000.00

Brew­ers $4,000.00

Dri­ving while dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing or ob­tain­ing a dri­ving per­mit No Fee

Care­less Dri­ving No Fee

Dri­ving or be­ing in charge of a ve­hi­cle while blood al­co­hol lev­els ex­ceed pre­scribed lim­it No Fee

Ex­port to Sheets

These in­creas­es in Penal­ties will con­tribute an ad­di­tion­al $180 mil­lion to rev­enues. These amend­ments will take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

Re­moval of Mo­tor-Ve­hi­cle Tax Con­ces­sions for Re­turn­ing Na­tion­als

In Jan­u­ary, 2023, the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit is­sued to the Min­istry of Fi­nance its Strate­gic Analy­sis Re­port on the Abuse of the Du­ty Re­lief Con­ces­sion Grant­ed for Per­son­al Ve­hi­cles Im­port­ed by Re­turn­ing Na­tion­als in ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 17(1)(b) of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go Act, Chap. 72:01 and Reg­u­la­tion 26(1)(d)(ii) of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­u­la­tions. The Re­port al­so cit­ed sta­tis­tics show­ing fraud and abuse of Du­ty Re­lief de­tect­ed by per­sons claim­ing Re­turn­ing Na­tion­al Ex­emp­tions Oc­to­ber 2016 – Sep­tem­ber 2018. De­spite know­ing this, the then Min­is­ter of Fi­nance sat on his hands, al­low­ing this abuse and loss of rev­enue to con­tin­ue. This Min­is­ter of Fi­nance is com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing the pub­lic purse and pre­vent­ing tax avoid­ance, fraud, and the abuse of con­ces­sions. To this end, I pro­pose that Cus­toms du­ty re­lief and re­lat­ed tax con­ces­sions (Val­ued Added Tax and Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Tax) on mo­tor ve­hi­cles im­port­ed by re­turn­ing na­tion­als be re­moved. This mea­sure will take ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

Sub­sidy on Liqui­fied Pe­tro­le­um Gas-LPG

The sub­sidy for LPG has been in place since 1976. The most re­cent ad­just­ment to the re­tail price was made in 1998, over 25 years ago. While we must ad­just the sub­si­dies to re­flect mar­ket forces as a car­ing Gov­ern­ment, we must pro­tect those least able to af­ford a sig­nif­i­cant price in­crease. I pro­pose to amend the sub­sidy on LPG cylin­ders of 100 pounds and above by $0.50 per pound. I wish to re­it­er­ate that the price of cylin­ders be­low 100 pounds, in­clud­ing the stan­dard 20-pound cylin­ders, will con­tin­ue to be sub­sidised at the same rate and will not change. These amend­ments will take ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

When UNC wins, house­holds win!

Safe­guard­ing our Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem

The Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem (NIS) safe­guards the dig­ni­ty of re­tirees and pro­vides in­come se­cu­ri­ty for work­ers and their fam­i­lies. To­day, an­nu­al ben­e­fit ex­pen­di­ture is well over $6 bil­lion—an in­crease of more than 65 per cent over the last 2 decades. Af­ter a decade of ne­glect, this sys­tem is in cri­sis to­day. To do noth­ing would be ir­re­spon­si­ble. Since 2020, ben­e­fit pay-outs have con­sis­tent­ly ex­ceed­ed con­tri­bu­tions, forc­ing the NIB to liq­ui­date its as­sets to meet oblig­a­tions. The 11th Ac­tu­ar­i­al Re­view projects that, if noth­ing is done, the Fund will be de­plet­ed by 2033 to 2034. We will not al­low the Fund to col­lapse, jeop­ar­diz­ing the very ben­e­fits that over 200,000 of our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens de­pend on. For near­ly a decade, the PNM sat idly by while the warn­ing bells sound­ed, kick­ing the prover­bial can down the road. Let me be clear: this Gov­ern­ment will act de­ci­sive­ly where the PNM re­fused to act.

Amend­ment to NIB rates

To save this crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion from bank­rupt­cy and pre­serve the ben­e­fits for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, we must in­crease the con­tri­bu­tion rate. To min­imise the bur­den on con­trib­u­tors, I pro­pose a phased ap­proach: im­ple­ment­ing a 3 per cent in­crease in the con­tri­bu­tion rate ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 5, 2026, fol­lowed by an­oth­er 3 per cent in­crease from Jan­u­ary 4, 2027.

Grad­ual ad­just­ment to the re­tire­ment age for a full NIS pen­sion

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Mr Speak­er, be­gin­ning in Jan­u­ary 2028, the age at which a per­son can re­ceive a full NIS re­tire­ment pen­sion will grad­u­al­ly in­crease over a 10-year pe­ri­od. There will be no change for any­one who re­tires at age 60 be­fore Jan­u­ary 1, 2028. These re­tirees will con­tin­ue to qual­i­fy for a full NIS pen­sion (with a min­i­mum of $3,000) at age 60. Fur­ther­more, ex­ist­ing pen­sion­ers will not be af­fect­ed by this change.

Start­ing in Jan­u­ary 2028, the age for a full NIS pen­sion will in­crease by one year every two years un­til it reach­es age 65 in 2036. This means that to ac­cess the full min­i­mum pen­sion of $3,000:

From Jan­u­ary 1, 2028, to De­cem­ber 31, 2029, a re­tiree must be 61 years of age;

From Jan­u­ary 1, 2030, to De­cem­ber 31, 2031, a re­tiree must be 62 years of age;

From Jan­u­ary 1, 2032, to De­cem­ber 31, 2033, a re­tiree must be 63 years of age;

From Jan­u­ary 1, 2034, to De­cem­ber 31, 2035, a re­tiree must be 64 years of age; and

From Jan­u­ary 1, 2036 on­ward, a re­tiree must be 65 years of age.

For clar­i­fi­ca­tion, these ad­just­ments mean that the re­tire­ment age for a full NIS pen­sion will move from 60 to 65 over the next decade. Per­sons who re­tire ear­ly will still re­ceive a pen­sion, but at a re­duced rate.

Mr Speak­er, these re­forms are not easy, but they are now ur­gent­ly re­quired giv­en the years of in­ac­tion that al­lowed these chal­lenges to deep­en un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion. These mea­sures are pro­ject­ed to ex­tend the life of the NIS Fund, se­cur­ing pen­sions for to­day’s work­ers and to­mor­row’s re­tirees. Let it be said, Mr Speak­er, that un­der this Gov­ern­ment, the NIS will not be al­lowed to fail.

When UNC wins, work­ers and pen­sion­ers win!

Re­search and De­vel­op­ment Im­pact Fund UWI

Mr Speak­er, in­no­va­tion is a key dri­ver of trans­for­ma­tion, com­pet­i­tive­ness and re­silience. The Re­search and De­vel­op­ment Im­pact (RDI) Fund at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) is a crit­i­cal mech­a­nism for ad­vanc­ing ap­plied re­search, fos­ter­ing part­ner­ships and gen­er­at­ing so­lu­tions to na­tion­al chal­lenges. The Fund has sup­port­ed more than 47 projects, cul­ti­vat­ed over 270 part­ner­ships, at­tract­ed $124 mil­lion in ex­ter­nal re­sources and de­liv­ered new prod­ucts and ser­vices that are al­ready in use across the re­gion. In keep­ing with the Gov­ern­ment’s di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion agen­da, an al­lo­ca­tion of $10 mil­lion will be pro­vid­ed to the UWI RDI Fund in Fis­cal 2026. This will en­cour­age more of our re­searchers and in­no­va­tors to fo­cus on ar­eas crit­i­cal to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, such as cli­mate re­silience, cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty, sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture and health in­no­va­tion.

Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion and In­cu­ba­tor Pro­gramme

The Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion and In­cu­ba­tor Pro­gramme will strength­en the in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem and en­tre­pre­neur­ship in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This Pro­gramme will pro­vide 100 young grad­u­ates and as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neurs with the men­tor­ship, fi­nanc­ing and struc­tured sup­port re­quired to trans­form ideas in­to vi­able busi­ness­es, and ex­pand the base of small and mi­cro-en­ter­pris­es to­wards eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. In fis­cal 2026, the Gov­ern­ment, through an al­lo­ca­tion of $15.75 mil­lion, will part­ner with the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion and UWI Ven­tures Lim­it­ed. This un­der­scores the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ter­mi­na­tion to cre­ate an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment where new en­tre­pre­neurs can emerge and par­tic­i­pate in a mod­ern, di­ver­si­fied econ­o­my. This Pro­gramme will com­mence in Jan­u­ary 2026.

Pe­ri­od Pover­ty In­ter­ven­tion

Pe­ri­od Pover­ty con­tin­ues to un­der­mine the health and ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties of many women and girls in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Women and girls im­pact­ed by Pe­ri­od Pover­ty strug­gle to af­ford men­stru­al hy­giene prod­ucts. To this end, I pro­pose the fol­low­ing strate­gic in­ter­ven­tions to ad­dress this so­cio-eco­nom­ic is­sue:

The Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices will col­lab­o­rate to es­tab­lish a Women’s Health Fund. The Gov­ern­ment will pro­vide an ini­tial seed cap­i­tal of $5 mil­lion. We will al­so part­ner with oth­er stake­hold­ers to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of this ini­tia­tive. This fund will be used to:

Launch a pi­lot pro­gramme to pro­vide dis­tri­b­u­tion of free men­stru­al kits in ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions; and

Pro­vide ed­u­ca­tion and sen­si­ti­sa­tion on men­stru­al health for var­i­ous groups—in­clud­ing men and boys—to fos­ter in­clu­siv­i­ty and dis­man­tle stig­ma.

A tax in­cen­tive will be pro­vid­ed to en­cour­age in­di­vid­u­als and cor­po­ra­tions to con­tribute to this Fund. This ini­tia­tive will com­mence in Jan­u­ary 2026.

When UNC wins, women and girls win!

eL­E­VATE TT

Mr Speak­er, this Gov­ern­ment will in­tro­duce the eL­E­VATE Pro­gramme to up­skill 15,000 ed­u­ca­tors, help­ing them in­cor­po­rate and mod­ernise their teach­ing method­olo­gies us­ing 21st-cen­tu­ry tech­nol­o­gy. The Gov­ern­ment will al­lo­cate $5.72 mil­lion to this pro­gramme, which will de­liv­er rel­e­vant, flex­i­ble and mod­ern pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment aligned to na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties and the 2025–2030 Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­i­cy. This Pro­gramme will com­mence in Jan­u­ary 2026.

When UNC wins, teach­ers win!

NEXTCLASS

Mr Speak­er, the NEXTCLASS pro­gramme aims to cre­ate an AI-pow­ered user in­ter­face plat­form that em­pow­ers teach­ers with the re­sources to en­hance their teach­ing ef­fec­tive­ness and fos­ter a more per­son­alised learn­ing en­vi­ron­ment. Every teacher will gain ac­cess to a sin­gle plat­form host­ed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, fea­tur­ing les­son plan­ning, re­al-time stu­dent track­ing, au­to­mat­ed grad­ing sup­port and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment tools. The Gov­ern­ment will in­vest $4.64 mil­lion in this pro­gramme. This Pro­gramme will com­mence in Jan­u­ary 2026.

When UNC wins, stu­dents win!

The PEARL Project: Pro­mot­ing Ear­ly As­sess­ment for Re­silient Learn­ers, "As­sess Ear­ly, Ed­u­cate Ful­ly"

Mr Speak­er, the Pro­mot­ing Ear­ly As­sess­ment for Re­silient Learn­ers ini­tia­tive will touch the lives of thou­sands of chil­dren and their fam­i­lies by en­sur­ing that chal­lenges in vi­sion, hear­ing, growth, and de­vel­op­ment are de­tect­ed and ad­dressed be­fore they be­come bar­ri­ers to learn­ing. The pro­gramme will em­bed uni­ver­sal screen­ing in our schools, en­sur­ing that dif­fi­cul­ties are iden­ti­fied and ad­dressed ear­ly be­fore they lim­it a child’s po­ten­tial. Through the align­ment of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, the Min­istry of Health, and the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, PEARL will guar­an­tee par­ents and stu­dents a seam­less medi­um of care and at­ten­tion. The gov­ern­ment will al­lo­cate $7.89 mil­lion to this pro­gramme, which will com­mence in Jan­u­ary 2026.

When UNC wins, chil­dren with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties win!

Tax Con­ces­sion for Cor­po­rate and In­di­vid­ual Con­tri­bu­tions to Reg­is­tered An­i­mal Shel­ters

Mr Speak­er, this Gov­ern­ment recog­nis­es the crit­i­cal role that reg­is­tered an­i­mal shel­ters play in con­trol­ling stray pop­u­la­tions, pro­mot­ing spay­ing and neu­ter­ing, and ad­vanc­ing pub­lic health and en­vi­ron­men­tal san­i­ta­tion. To sup­port their work, I pro­pose to amend the Cor­po­ra­tion Tax Act, Chap. 75:02 to al­low com­pa­nies that make fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to reg­is­tered an­i­mal shel­ters ap­proved by the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries to claim such con­tri­bu­tions as a de­duc­tion in com­put­ing their charge­able prof­its. The de­duc­tion will be capped at the low­er of 15 per cent of charge­able prof­its or $100,000 per year of in­come. Mr Speak­er, I pro­pose to amend the In­come Tax Act, Chap. 75:01 to pro­vide a stand-alone de­duc­tion for in­di­vid­u­als who sup­port reg­is­tered an­i­mal shel­ters. To qual­i­fy, the shel­ter must be reg­is­tered un­der the Non-Prof­it Or­gan­i­sa­tions Act, 2019 or the Com­pa­nies Act, Chap. 81:01, and ap­proved by the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries. The de­duc­tion will be capped at the low­er of 20 per cent of the in­di­vid­ual’s to­tal in­come or $20,000 per year. These amend­ments will take ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

When UNC wins, an­i­mal lovers win!

Agri­cul­tur­al In­cen­tives

Mr Speak­er, de­spite their promise to make the agri­cul­ture sec­tor tax-free, the PNM failed to ful­fil this com­mit­ment. This has char­ac­terised the PNM's ne­glect of our farm­ers, which has com­pro­mised our food se­cu­ri­ty. Our fo­cus is to make food more af­ford­able to every cit­i­zen by sup­port­ing in­creased and sus­tain­able agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion: To this end, I pro­pose:

to re­move VAT from all ma­chin­ery and equip­ment in­tend­ed ex­plic­it­ly for agri­cul­tur­al use;

to re­move VAT from all com­po­nents used ex­plic­it­ly in hy­dro­pon­ic farm­ing and green­house farm­ing, if not al­ready spec­i­fied else­where;

the re­view of Para­graph 5 of Sched­ule 2 of the VAT Act to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive clas­si­fi­ca­tion for ze­ro-rat­ed prepa­ra­tions and chem­i­cals to en­sure farm­ers have ac­cess to a full range of cost-ef­fec­tive in­puts for cul­ti­va­tion and an­i­mal health; and

the re­moval of Cus­toms Du­ty from feed used for poul­try, cat­tle and pig.

These amend­ments will take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

When UNC wins, farm­ers win!

VAT on Food Items

In the last Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led UNC Ad­min­is­tra­tion, we re­moved VAT from 7000 food items. As soon as the PNM as­sumed Of­fice, they rein­tro­duced VAT on these ba­sic food items. This had an im­me­di­ate ef­fect of di­rect­ly rais­ing the prices of food for every cit­i­zen. Pub­lic pres­sure even­tu­al­ly forced them to re­move the VAT on some items. To­day, I am proud to say this ad­min­is­tra­tion will again be re­mov­ing Val­ue Added Tax from a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of ba­sic food items. These items will in­clude ta­ble salt, mau­by, co­conut wa­ter, as well as lo­cal­ly pro­duced pump­kin, wa­ter­mel­on, cu­cum­ber, let­tuce and toma­toes, amongst oth­ers. This is a gov­ern­ment that cares about the av­er­age cit­i­zen.

You see, when UNC wins, every­body wins!

This mea­sure will take ef­fect from Oc­to­ber 17, 2025.

Amend­ments to The Pol­i­cy on Im­por­ta­tion of For­eign Used Ve­hi­cles

A pre­vi­ous UNC Ad­min­is­tra­tion had de­moc­ra­tised ac­cess to ve­hi­cle own­er­ship by in­tro­duc­ing for­eign used ve­hi­cles to the mar­ket, mak­ing ve­hi­cles avail­able to every cit­i­zen. We have since not­ed the in­crease in the cost of new and for­eign used ve­hi­cles as a di­rect re­sult of the re­stric­tive poli­cies of the PNM. To­day I am pleased to an­nounce that in keep­ing with our 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion com­mit­ment to make ve­hi­cle own­er­ship af­ford­able again, I pro­pose the fol­low­ing:

an in­crease in the per­mis­si­ble age of im­por­ta­tion of pri­vate cars (SU­Vs, Sedans and Sta­tion Wag­ons) which are pow­ered by gaso­line, diesel or CNG from 3 years and un­der, to 6 years and un­der, from the date of man­u­fac­ture; and

an in­crease in the per­mis­si­ble age of im­por­ta­tion of light com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles (pick­ups and pan­el vans) from 7 years and un­der, to 10 years and un­der, from the date of man­u­fac­ture.

This mea­sure will take ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

When UNC wins, every cit­i­zen wins!

Re­moval of tax on Pri­vate Pen­sions

In keep­ing with the Gov­ern­ment’s promise dur­ing the 2025 elec­tion cam­paign, I pro­pose that pri­vate pen­sions be ex­empt­ed from In­come Tax. These amend­ments will take ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

When UNC wins, Re­tirees win!

Re­duc­ing the Cost of Con­struc­tion Ma­te­ri­als

Over the last decade, the cost of con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als has sky­rock­et­ed, mak­ing home­own­er­ship an un­ful­filled dream to many, par­tic­u­lar­ly our young peo­ple. Con­scious of this and to fur­ther stim­u­late the econ­o­my, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the area of con­struc­tion, I pro­pose that the neg­a­tive list un­der the Trade Or­di­nance be amend­ed to re­move item no. “(i) 4. Clays, crushed lime­stone, boul­ders, sand, grav­el, plas­ter­ing sand, por­cel­lanitic, argillite, oil sand”. This will pro­vide a much-need­ed im­pe­tus to the con­struc­tion sec­tor and is ex­pect­ed to re­duce the cost of build­ing ma­te­ri­als and the cost of con­struc­tion, gen­er­al­ly. This will al­so boost em­ploy­ment in plumb­ing, elec­tri­cals, tiling, ma­son­ry, car­pen­try and fab­ri­ca­tion in­dus­tries amongst oth­ers. These amend­ments will take ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1 2026.

When UNC wins, home­own­ers win!

When UNC wins, trades­men win!

Con­clu­sion

Bud­get 2026 is a de­c­la­ra­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go is back on course. In the words of Kahlil Gibran, “True progress is not in en­hanc­ing what is, but in ad­vanc­ing what should be.” This Bud­get is more than just an ac­count­ing of rev­enues and ex­pen­di­tures, plans and poli­cies. It rep­re­sents a shift to­wards fair­ness. For too long, the Gov­ern­ment’s fis­cal pol­i­cy has been seen as a tech­ni­cal ex­er­cise. To­day, we re­de­fine it as a hu­man one. Every dol­lar we spend, every mea­sure we take, must be guid­ed by a sin­gle prin­ci­ple: putting the peo­ple of T&T first.

In this Fis­cal Year, we are tak­ing de­lib­er­ate steps to re­align na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties, to put our great na­tion first, and to build eco­nom­ic fair­ness through ac­count­able fis­cal poli­cies. This is the be­gin­ning of a new era - one built on trust, fair­ness and peo­ple-cen­tred gov­er­nance; where growth is mea­sured not on­ly by GDP, but by the strength of our com­mu­ni­ties and the hope we in­spire in every home across this na­tion.

This Bud­get is, at its core, a state­ment of the UNC’s val­ues. It re­flects our be­lief that eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy must be­gin and end with peo­ple: re­al men and women strug­gling each day to build bet­ter lives for them­selves and their fam­i­lies. Our task, there­fore, is not just to bal­ance the na­tion’s fi­nances, but to re­store bal­ance to our so­ci­ety, to en­sure that op­por­tu­ni­ty reach­es every com­mu­ni­ty from Ce­dros to Char­lot­teville, from Moru­ga to Care­nage, where equal ac­cess to the na­tion­al pat­ri­mo­ny is avail­able to every sin­gle cit­i­zen.

The days of promis­es with­out per­for­mance are over – this UNC Gov­ern­ment de­liv­ers! As we close the sor­ry chap­ter of the last decade and look for­ward to our fu­ture, we can­not pa­per over – as was done be­fore – the harsh re­al­i­ties we face. Yes, the road ahead is long, and growth will be tem­pered in the short term by the de­cline in the en­er­gy sec­tor—a lega­cy left by a decade of ne­glect and ir­re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance. How­ev­er, the na­tion will have not­ed that this Gov­ern­ment - un­der the vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar - re­fus­es to be par­a­lyzed by the lega­cies of the past and the post-mortems of those who rush to be the first to bleat. We have cho­sen to lis­ten to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have cho­sen a fis­cal ap­proach that will not on­ly re­store sta­bil­i­ty, but will lay a foun­da­tion for last­ing pros­per­i­ty — en­sur­ing that our na­tion’s fu­ture is one of op­por­tu­ni­ty for every cit­i­zen, no mat­ter their back­ground.

To every cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go: this is not just the Gov­ern­ment’s jour­ney; it is yours as well. Our shared fu­ture de­pends on uni­ty, pa­tience, and col­lec­tive ef­fort. Let us move for­ward to­geth­er — with courage, with hope and with the firm con­vic­tion that we will re­build a stronger, fair­er and more pros­per­ous Trinidad and To­ba­go.

As this Bud­get demon­strates:

When UNC wins, home­own­ers win!

When UNC wins, trades­men win!

When UNC wins, Re­tirees win!

When UNC wins, Chil­dren win!

When UNC wins, work­ers and pen­sion­ers win!

When UNC wins, farm­ers win!

When UNC wins, busi­ness wins!

When UNC wins, man­u­fac­tur­ers win!

When UNC wins, Pub­lic Ser­vants win!

When UNC wins, for­mer Ca­roni Work­ers win!

When UNC wins, women and girls win!

When UNC wins, mo­torists win!

When UNC wins, chil­dren with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties win!

When UNC wins, an­i­mal lovers win!

When UNC wins, young peo­ple win!

When UNC wins, the vul­ner­a­ble win!

WHEN UNC WINS, EVERY­BODY WINS!

Mr. Speak­er, I beg to move.