Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The 2026 bud­get must de­tail arrange­ments for the set­tle­ment of pub­lic ser­vants’ ne­go­ti­a­tions and ad­dress the out­stand­ing 12 per cent wage in­crease for Port Au­thor­i­ty work­ers, says Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette.

There are al­so con­tin­u­ing calls from oth­er groups for con­crete bud­get mea­sures to ad­dress crime and pro­mote eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

An­nisette’s views were al­so among the pri­or­i­ty hopes for the up­com­ing bud­get ex­pressed by the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, for­mer min­is­ters Jack Warn­er and Ra­mona Ram­di­al and the Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea.

The cur­rent fis­cal year end­ed yes­ter­day. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly in­di­cat­ed there would be an ear­ly Oc­to­ber bud­get, spark­ing spec­u­la­tion about an Oc­to­ber 6 or 10 de­liv­ery.

Prepa­ra­tions were be­ing fi­nalised up to last week.

Yes­ter­day, JTUM’s An­nisette shared his hopes for the bud­get.

“We want—and T&T de­serves—a peo­ple-cen­tred bud­get that speaks to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, ef­fi­cien­cy, and train­ing/reskilling work­ers. We wel­come news of ne­go­ti­a­tions for pub­lic ser­vants’ 10 per cent set­tle­ment and pay­ment. In tan­dem, we al­so hope the bud­get ad­dress­es the out­stand­ing 12 per cent wage hike for Port work­ers, and that all in­creas­es will be ap­pro­pri­ate for work­ers who were forced to live on 2012/14 wages over the last 11 years. We hope every­one ob­tains a re­al wage that ad­dress­es the di­min­ished lev­el of work­ers’ pur­chas­ing pow­er over the last 10 years.”

He added, “What I wouldn’t like to see in the bud­get is non-so­lu­tions for job­less CEPEP, URP, and oth­er work­ers; the forex prob­lem re­main­ing in a way that or­di­nary peo­ple suf­fer; and T&T’s crime sit­u­a­tion con­tin­u­ing to es­ca­late.”

Ad­dress crime—

TT Cham­ber

T&T Cham­ber CEO, Vashti Guyadeen, would like a clear fo­cus on sup­port­ing an ecosys­tem that fa­cil­i­tates the de­vel­op­ment of new rev­enue streams, par­tic­u­lar­ly in agro-pro­cess­ing and the “Or­ange” econ­o­my, as out­lined in the cham­ber’s bud­get rec­om­men­da­tions.

The cham­ber al­so wants con­crete mea­sures to ad­dress crime and se­cu­ri­ty, giv­en its di­rect im­pact on in­vestor con­fi­dence and the ease of do­ing busi­ness. It stressed it would be a mis­take if the bud­get fails to mean­ing­ful­ly ad­dress the on­go­ing for­eign ex­change short­age, “which con­tin­ues to con­strain busi­ness growth and trade. Any fur­ther de­lays or gaps in im­ple­ment­ing re­forms to im­prove the ease of do­ing busi­ness re­main crit­i­cal to com­pet­i­tive­ness and at­tract­ing in­vest­ment.”

No tax hikes, van­i­ty projects—Warn­er

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP and min­is­ter Jack Warn­er called for the bud­get to fo­cus on job cre­ation through di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, qual­i­ty health­care, ed­u­ca­tion, and re­al ac­count­abil­i­ty. He does not want to see de­val­u­a­tion, tax in­creas­es, or van­i­ty projects.

“I’m hop­ing for se­ri­ous in­vest­ment in di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and job cre­ation,” Warn­er said.

“For too long, T&T has re­lied al­most en­tire­ly on oil and gas. I want to see con­crete bud­get al­lo­ca­tions for de­vel­op­ing new sec­tors—tech­nol­o­gy, agri­cul­ture, tourism, and the cre­ative in­dus­tries—so youths have re­al ca­reer op­por­tu­ni­ties. Health­care and ed­u­ca­tion re­forms that touch lives are need­ed. It’s not enough to pour mon­ey in­to hos­pi­tals and schools with­out fix­ing in­ef­fi­cien­cies. The bud­get should guar­an­tee a re­li­able med­i­cine sup­ply, short­er wait­ing times, and bet­ter-paid, bet­ter-equipped health­care work­ers. I’d want in­vest­ment in dig­i­tal class­rooms, teacher train­ing, and fa­cil­i­ties so that chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly in rur­al ar­eas, aren’t left be­hind. These are the two ser­vices every­one de­pends on; they should be the back­bone of bud­get pri­or­i­ties.”

Small busi­ness as­sis­tance—

Ram­di­al, FFOS

For­mer UNC MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al hopes for more fi­nan­cial aid for small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) and an ex­pan­sion of grant fund­ing through state en­ter­pris­es to help grow small busi­ness­es and cre­ate jobs. She al­so called for changes in the jus­tice sys­tem.

“A com­plete over­haul of the ju­di­cia­ry and le­gal ser­vices is need­ed, plus im­prove­ments at the Land Reg­istry and re­mov­ing stamp du­ty for first-time home­own­ers. The crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem needs re­struc­tur­ing to­wards quick­er jus­tice. A na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture up­grade is need­ed, prop­er waste dis­pos­al sys­tems, and the re­turn of the Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill with plans for a re­cy­cling plant,” she said.

Ram­di­al does not want new tax­es, in­creas­es in fu­el and food prices, or re­duced ac­com­mo­da­tion for il­le­gal im­mi­grants.

FFOS sec­re­tary Gary Aboud called for “a peo­ple-cen­tred, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly re­spon­si­ble, and eco­nom­i­cal­ly di­verse bud­get” to pro­tect farm­ers and fish­er­folk, up­lift work­ers, and in­cen­tivise long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“This bud­get pro­vides a his­toric op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­build our econ­o­my on the pil­lars of food se­cu­ri­ty, fair­ness, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” he said.

He list­ed 14 so­lu­tions fi­nanced by freez­ing all non-es­sen­tial con­struc­tion projects, re­view­ing and rene­go­ti­at­ing all in­flat­ed state rentals, re­cov­er­ing pub­lic funds from the Pi­ar­co Air­port project and cor­rup­tion scan­dals, and re­duc­ing un­nec­es­sary gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture, in­clud­ing first-class trav­el, five-star ac­com­mo­da­tion, and ex­ces­sive se­cu­ri­ty en­tourages for state of­fi­cials.