Akash Sama­roo

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

There is still no word on when the Gov­ern­ment will present its first Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in the Low­er House, with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on­ly say­ing that it will come “very soon.”

But while ex­perts be­lieve this is noth­ing un­to­ward and no re­al rea­son for con­cern, one for­mer min­is­ter in the Fi­nance Min­istry be­lieves this could mean that the Gov­ern­ment is hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in fi­nal­is­ing the num­bers.

There was a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that the date for the Bud­get would have been an­nounced this week. How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia asked the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, she would on­ly say, “Bud­get Day will be very soon.”

This fol­lowed a sim­i­lar an­swer giv­en to Guardian Me­dia the week be­fore, when the PM was asked that same ques­tion out­side the Unit­ed Na­tions Head­quar­ters in New York.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia al­so asked Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo but he de­ferred the ques­tion to his head of gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, Tan­coo in­sist­ed that every­thing was ready, and the PM has some doc­u­ments in her pos­ses­sion.

It is not un­com­mon for a bud­get to be read in Oc­to­ber. In the last 10 years of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert pre­sent­ed his bud­get sev­en times in Oc­to­ber.

For­mer min­is­ter in the Fi­nance Min­istry, Mar­i­ano Browne, yes­ter­day said the Gov­ern­ment is still with­in its le­gal time frame.

“You must come with a bud­get be­fore the 31st of Oc­to­ber and a pro­vi­sion­al col­lec­tion of tax­es or­der which goes in­to po­si­tion im­me­di­ate­ly. The fi­nal Fi­nance Bill is gen­er­al­ly done in De­cem­ber, which con­firms all of the arrange­ments and pass­es it in­to law. The pur­pose of the speech is what you will call a pri­ma fa­cie ap­pro­pri­a­tion bill which sets it out. So, it gives them the le­gal au­thor­i­ty, sort of like in­ter­im au­thor­i­ty, to go ahead. And then it’s fi­nalised, when the ac­tu­al bud­get on the Fi­nance Bill is passed,” Browne ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he added, “Clear­ly, they are hav­ing some is­sues in terms of fi­nal­is­ing the num­bers.”

Mean­while, for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira said she has no is­sue with the Gov­ern­ment tak­ing its time be­fore com­ing to the Par­lia­ment and the pub­lic. Nunez-Tesheira said the Gov­ern­ment has to en­sure it can de­liv­er on what­ev­er promis­es it comes with.

“If you just look at what hap­pened with Colm Im­bert when they formed the gov­ern­ment in 2015. I mean, he made a lot of promis­es and they were ill-ad­vised. So many of them were.”

Nunez-Tesheira, who was Fi­nance min­is­ter be­tween 2007 and 2010, said this Gov­ern­ment knows that the up­com­ing Bud­get is a “make or break” one.

“They know that they promised so much and there is an ex­pec­ta­tion. There’s this be­lief that what­ev­er they’re go­ing to come with is go­ing to be that ray of hope, that change of di­rec­tion, not just in words, but in ac­tion. And they know that is what is ex­pect­ed of them,” she ex­plained.

The for­mer min­is­ter added, “And so, there’s a lot of, I would say, a lot of pres­sure hav­ing been in the wilder­ness, so to speak, for 10 years to come back now again as prime min­is­ter. You know, I would think it’s to err on the side of cau­tion and line up your ducks as best as you can, be­cause we’re liv­ing in a dif­fer­ent world of so­cial me­dia. Peo­ple will be able to re­spond and just like, I mean, so quick, Google, click of a hand.”

Econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmi­ki Ar­joon al­so be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment is un­der­stand­ably be­ing ex­tra cau­tious.

“They ap­pear to be care­ful­ly craft­ing a strat­e­gy that would pri­ori­tise com­pet­i­tive­ness in the pri­vate sec­tor and strength­en our over­all eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty. They would have in­her­it­ed a pre­car­i­ous fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en that the en­er­gy cy­cle is not cur­rent­ly in our favour.”

Dr Ar­joon be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment is al­so at­tempt­ing to “front-load” the bud­get.

“So, ini­tia­tives like in­vest­ments in in­fra­struc­ture, digi­ti­sa­tion of pub­lic ser­vices, in­cen­tives for re­new­able en­er­gy, and agri-pro­cess­ing, ini­tia­tives that can de­liv­er very strong re­turns and help to stim­u­late more pri­vate sec­tor growth, cre­ate more pro­duc­tive jobs. This type of ap­proach is very for­ward-look­ing, and I think it will en­sure that even though the bud­get is like­ly to re­flect a deficit, it is a bud­get that will be struc­tured to gen­er­ate fu­ture rev­enues.”