The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance yes­ter­day an­nounced Sep­tem­ber 26 as Bud­get Day, at which time the 2022/2023 fis­cal pack­age will be pre­sent­ed.

The bud­get usu­al­ly evokes great ex­pec­ta­tions, with peo­ple from all walks of life ea­ger to hear what it will bring and the im­pact the mea­sures will have on their lives and liveli­hoods.

Among those keen­ly look­ing on are pub­lic sec­tor work­ers and the trade unions that rep­re­sent them. They have been hop­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s 4 per cent wage in­crease of­fer will be im­proved, de­spite talks with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fer in­di­cat­ing oth­er­wise.

Al­ready one union - the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union - has ac­cept­ed the 4 per cent, a de­ci­sion for which its pres­i­dent, Michael Pren­tice, has been at­tacked by his com­rades. The oth­ers, like the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion, which was pre­sent­ed with eight per cent, con­tin­ue to hold out for high­er of­fers and even sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to show their re­buff in a no­tice­able way.

How­ev­er, dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Spot­light on the Econ­o­my, Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert re­vealed that if the Gov­ern­ment at­tempts to sub­mit to these de­mands - like the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion’s re­quest for a 19 per cent in­crease - it will cost the State $15.8 bil­lion in back pay alone, while the ad­di­tion­al an­nu­al cost to the wage bud­get will stand at $1.8 bil­lion.

The Min­is­ter added if that was ex­tend­ed to the wider State sec­tor, ar­rears would to­tal $30.3 bil­lion and the an­nu­al wage bill would be $3.4 bil­lion. This, Min­is­ter Im­bert ex­plained, is not fea­si­ble.

But there must be room for com­pro­mise and find­ing a com­mon ground for all con­cerned.

The Fi­nance Min­is­ter al­so sug­gest­ed the Gov­ern­ment could not sus­tain the cur­rent fu­el sub­sidy if in­ter­na­tion­al oil prices re­main at the cur­rent high lev­els and spoke about the strain sub­si­dis­ing WASA and T&TEC was putting on the State’s cof­fers.

De­spite all this, the Min­is­ter men­tioned that there is some good news with re­gard to the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al re­serves and im­prov­ing cred­it rat­ing.

Nev­er­the­less, cit­i­zens should be re­al­is­tic with all they are clam­our­ing for, as col­lec­tive­ly, we can ill-af­ford an­oth­er eco­nom­ic slow­down.

On the oth­er hand, a se­ri­ous ef­fort must be made in the Bud­get to en­sure cit­i­zens can ac­cess food items, giv­en the nu­mer­ous in­creas­es faced over the last year and a half.

The re­moval of Val­ue Added Tax in the 2021/2022 bud­get, though ap­plaud­ed, was quick­ly coun­tered by sev­er­al price hikes, par­tic­u­lar­ly on es­sen­tial items.

Con­sumers thus re­main hard-pressed to pur­chase ba­sic food items.

An­oth­er area of dis­tress for cit­i­zens re­mains the con­di­tion of the road in­fra­struc­ture in many parts of the coun­try.

Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan pre­vi­ous­ly re­vealed his min­istry does not have mon­ey to re­pair all the na­tion’s roads in re­sponse to protests, in­clud­ing some which were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s re­cent state­ment, how­ev­er, sug­gest there may be some re­lief ahead on this. But it does di­min­ish the predica­ment and in­con­ve­nience be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced by res­i­dents in com­mu­ni­ties who de­serve bet­ter roads.

There is no doubt, that the list could go on and on.

What­ev­er comes in the suite of mea­sures ahead, while it is an­tic­i­pat­ed the ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties of the cit­i­zen­ry would be met, great ex­pec­ta­tions should be man­aged.