Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has called out Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, urg­ing her to ex­plain the mis­man­age­ment of the 2026 Bud­get date. Beck­les is al­so warn­ing again that if the Bud­get isn't passed be­fore Oc­to­ber 31, the Pub­lic Ser­vice will be forced to cease op­er­a­tions from No­vem­ber 1st.

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader al­so wants ex­pla­na­tions from Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her re­cent cab­i­net "re­align­ment."

This, af­ter Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Kirk Meighoo said on Thurs­day that he had "mis­tak­en­ly" shared a fly­er cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia with the Bud­get date as Oc­to­ber 13. Nei­ther Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo nor the Gov­ern­ment had of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced the of­fi­cial Bud­get up to then.

Cit­ing wide­spread con­ster­na­tion re­gard­ing the man­age­ment of the Bud­get date, Beck­les al­so said Per­sad-Bisses­sar's lat­est Cab­i­net port­fo­lio changes, which were pub­lished in the T&T Gazette, were made with­out any ex­pla­na­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice.

"What should make this even more con­cern­ing is the bungling of what should be a sim­ple mat­ter - the an­nounce­ment of a date for read­ing of the Na­tion­al Bud­get. Mon­day, Oc­to­ber 6th, 2025, would nor­mal­ly have been Bud­get Day," Beck­les said in a state­ment Mon­day night.

"In­stead of rou­tine process, the coun­try is left in to­tal and ab­solute con­fu­sion as a UNC Min­is­ter pub­lished a bud­get date on so­cial me­dia, then quick­ly re­tract­ed it with­out ex­pla­na­tion! Cit­i­zens are now more be­wil­dered than ever!

"As it stands, there's bare­ly enough time re­main­ing to com­plete the nec­es­sary steps be­fore Oc­to­ber 31st, one month af­ter the end of the fi­nan­cial year, which is the ab­solute last day by which the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill must be passed by both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and as­sent­ed to by the Pres­i­dent."

Beck­les con­tin­ued, "If the Bud­get is not passed and as­sent­ed to be­fore that date, the Pub­lic Ser­vice will be forced to cease op­er­a­tions from No­vem­ber 1st un­til the Bud­get ex­er­cise is com­plet­ed, passed and as­sent­ed to by Her Ex­cel­len­cy.

"This would place T&T in a fi­nan­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble po­si­tion, es­pe­cial­ly as both the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) and Moody’s are sched­uled to re­view T&T's stand­ing be­fore year’s end."

Beck­les said cit­i­zens al­so re­main in the dark, try­ing to make sense of why the port­fo­lio changes were made, and what they mean for the na­tion.

"The truth is in the de­tails, and the Prime Min­is­ter owes the pub­lic a clear ex­pla­na­tion about this reshuf­fle and the rea­son be­hind the un­prece­dent­ed de­lay and un­nec­es­sary con­fu­sion sur­round­ing the an­nounce­ment of a Bud­get date," she said.

Cab­i­net changes em­pow­er a few close to PM

Beck­les said the Cab­i­net “over­haul” looked like, "a con­fus­ing reshuf­fling of roles, split­ting up min­istries that nat­u­ral­ly be­long to­geth­er while con­sol­i­dat­ing pow­er in the hands of a few min­is­ters said to be close to the Prime Min­is­ter."

She not­ed the Prime Min­is­ter has now tak­en con­trol of the "... col­lapsed Hous­ing Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme, while three oth­er min­is­ters over­see dif­fer­ent as­pects of Hous­ing, and yet an­oth­er con­trols State Lands and the Land Set­tle­ment Agency. How can this pos­si­bly be con­sid­ered ef­fi­cient gov­er­nance?"

She said the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), a sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty body, is now di­vid­ed be­tween the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (re­spon­si­ble for in­tel­li­gence and strat­e­gy) and the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter (in charge of bud­get and re­port­ing).

"This frag­ment­ed struc­ture can on­ly lead to con­fu­sion in an area where tight con­trol and co­or­di­na­tion are es­sen­tial. Even more wor­ry­ing is the con­tin­ued sidelin­ing of the En­er­gy Min­is­ter, who was ex­clud­ed from crit­i­cal dis­cus­sions with the US gov­ern­ment on cross-bor­der oil and gas re­sources. This lack of clar­i­ty and lead­er­ship in the en­er­gy sec­tor may well have con­tributed to Stan­dard & Poor’s down­grade to a neg­a­tive out­look for T&T."

Beck­les said cit­i­zens de­serve trans­paren­cy, "... not dis­trac­tions, con­fu­sion and chaos."

"In the ab­sence of any ex­pla­na­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter, and with the coun­try ef­fec­tive­ly stalled, the Op­po­si­tion calls on the Gov­ern­ment to re­turn to work and present the Bud­get. Af­ter al­most six months in of­fice, no vis­i­ble works are on­go­ing, over 50,000 work­ers have lost jobs, salaries are de­layed, and ba­sic main­te­nance of roads, drains and fa­cil­i­ties has ground to a halt. The peo­ple are tired, anx­ious, and des­per­ate for lead­er­ship!" Beck­les said.