Gail Alexan­der

“Faris, start do­ing some work!”

This in­struc­tion was giv­en by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi, af­ter his min­istry re­ceived fund­ing for road re­pairs and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Im­bert made the quip at Tues­day’s PNM meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas, where Al-Rawi was in the au­di­ence.

Speak­ing about the $11 bil­lion in ex­tra rev­enue Gov­ern­ment’s ob­tained for 2022 and stat­ing Gov­ern­ment’s over­draft is cur­rent­ly 39 per cent, Im­bert added, “It means there are things we can do.”

Not on­ly can hous­ing be fi­nanced, but al­so road con­struc­tion, re­pairs and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and small com­mu­ni­ty projects, Im­bert added.

Im­bert gave the “or­der” to Al-Rawi as he cit­ed $200 mil­lion had been al­lo­cat­ed for the Sec­ondary Roads Im­prove­ment Com­pa­ny. Al­so not­ing funds for the PURE pro­gramme, he said the Works Min­istry has “no ex­cuse” now.

Im­bert said the ex­tra $11 bil­lion will al­so as­sist Gov­ern­ment’s hous­ing thrust. The Hous­ing Min­istry ob­tained $1.5 bil­lion for projects, restart­ing stalled ones and pay­ing debts to ser­vice providers, he said.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is de­tailed planned HDC projects for all over T&T—in­clud­ing restart­ing stalled projects, among them the long-stalled Ed­in­burgh Tow­ers.

Con­struc­tion of those two Cen­tral Trinidad apart­ment build­ings be­gan in 2006 and was stalled in 2011 due to de­sign flaws and miss­ing ap­provals. In 2021 then-Hous­ing Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les pro­ject­ed it would have been com­plet­ed ear­ly this year.

The to­tal num­ber of up­com­ing HDC projects will house 5,000 fam­i­lies, Robin­son-Reg­is said HDC will al­so ex­pand its rental thrust and old­er de­vel­op­ments will be giv­en facelifts in time for Christ­mas, Robin­son-Reg­is added.

On the ex­tra rev­enue, Im­bert not­ed there was al­so in­creased rev­enue from the non-oil sec­tor.

“So, T&T’s econ­o­my is do­ing ex­treme­ly well, it’s not just oil and gas, it’s the non-oil sec­tor al­so —we’re see­ing im­prove­ment in vir­tu­al­ly every area,” Im­bert said.

He said from Jan­u­ary, peo­ple earn­ing $7,500 month­ly won’t have to pay tax. A bill to launch that will be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row.

He said Gov­ern­ment’s ex­tra rev­enue will be spent on those most in need and per­ma­nent long-term sus­tain­able jobs—not “make work” pro­grammes.

Im­bert in­di­cat­ed that af­ter sev­en years, there’s some ease up and some mon­ey can be spent on im­prov­ing peo­ple’s stan­dard of liv­ing and help­ing those in need. He in­di­cat­ed the sit­u­a­tion was scar­ing the Op­po­si­tion.

“All they can say is things hard but things are not go­ing to be so hard in the fu­ture,” he said.