Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cakl Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment's man­age­ment of the for­eign ex­change is­sue will see height­ened ac­tion in 2026, with ad­di­tion­al work an­tic­i­pat­ed on re­struc­tur­ing the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of T&T Ltd (Ex­im­bank), as well as the de­vel­op­ment of greater co­or­di­na­tion in forex al­lo­ca­tion with oth­er forex dis­trib­u­tors and gen­er­a­tors, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo says.

And sys­tems are al­so be­ing im­ple­ment­ed in 2026 for the tighter man­age­ment of state en­ter­pris­es with a changed per­for­mance-man­date man­u­al.

Tan­coo spoke on the is­sues yes­ter­day as he gave his views on his fo­cus in 2026.

Tan­coo, an econ­o­mist, said, "Cal­en­dar 2026 will see the Fi­nance Min­istry tak­ing more steps to im­prove the re­sourc­ing and re­sul­tant func­tion­ing of the Board of In­land Rev­enue and Cus­toms to en­sure they pur­sue fullest com­pli­ance with the law. We have tak­en strong po­si­tions against those who break the law by tax eva­sion, mon­ey laun­der­ing and il­le­gal gam­bling in par­tic­u­lar.

"We'll con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board as it rolls out im­prove­ments in its de­liv­ery of so­cial sup­port and ser­vices."

He con­tin­ued, "Im­por­tant­ly too, the min­istry will place greater em­pha­sis on re­port­ing struc­tures, ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in the op­er­a­tions of state-owned en­ter­pris­es by in­creas­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of boards to file op­er­a­tional in­for­ma­tion to the state via a vast­ly im­proved State En­ter­prise Per­for­mance Mon­i­tor­ing Man­u­al be­ing im­ple­ment­ed across the board with Cab­i­net sup­port."

The man­u­al is the guide­line by which all state en­ter­prise per­for­mance is ex­pect­ed to com­ply, he said. It is al­so tra­di­tion­al­ly used as the ba­sis on which of­fi­cials of state en­ter­pris­es are ques­tioned on per­for­mance when they ap­pear be­fore Par­lia­ment's Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tees - par­tic­u­lar­ly the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (PAC) and Pub­lic Ac­counts En­ter­pris­es Com­mit­tee (PAEC).

Tan­coo al­so told Guardian Me­dia, "We'll be work­ing close­ly with all min­istries in the roll­out of the var­i­ous Gov­ern­ment plans and pro­grammes, in­clud­ing the Gov­ern­ment's var­i­ous Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­prints.

"I ex­pect as well some sub­stan­tial struc­tur­al and op­er­a­tional changes at the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board as the en­ti­ty trans­forms to greater con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

"And there are lots more. 2026 is a year of change. We can­not con­tin­ue the cor­rupt mis­man­age­ment of the coun­try that be­came the norm over the last decade of de­struc­tion. Our coun­try is at a ma­jor cross­road, and it re­quires all hands-on deck, ma­ture de­ci­sion mak­ing, re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tions and a pa­tri­ot­ic will to build a bet­ter fu­ture."