Kali­fa Clyne

The 2016 Bud­get read in Par­lia­ment by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert was de­cep­tive, in­fla­tion­ary and will see the poor and work­ing class in this coun­try feel the ef­fects of raised goods and ser­vices in the near fu­ture.

That was the view of Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as she spoke to me­dia fol­low­ing the read­ing of the Bud­get yes­ter­day. The press con­fer­ence was held at Tow­er D.

"This Bud­get is tax, tax, tax, tax and promise, promise, promise," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Flanked by Op­po­si­tion MPs and Sen­a­tors, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the promis­es that were made were promis­es of mega-projects with no in­di­ca­tion of how those would be fi­nanced.

Among the projects men­tioned by Im­bert was the es­tab­lish­ment of a ship re­pair and build­ing cen­tre in the west­ern penin­su­la, the es­tab­lish­ment of a sea route from the To­co to To­ba­go, as well as high­way projects, in­clud­ing the Ch­aguara­mas cause­way.

"They gave no in­di­ca­tion of what would be done or what would be the cost­ing of any of these mega projects.

"I want us to re­call for the past five years not a sin­gle tax was levied on the pop­u­la­tion," she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Im­bert had pre­sent­ed an in­fla­tion­ary bud­get.

"The prices of al­most every­thing will go up, so when you look at the im­pact on the vul­ner­a­ble, on the poor and on the work­ing class­es, we will see the in­crease that has come on fu­el, su­per and diesel.

She not­ed that al­most all ve­hi­cles that did trans­port of goods, as well as maxi-taxis, used diesel.

"The cost of trans­port will go up. If the cost of trans­port goes up, it means the cost of every good or ser­vice in the coun­try will go up.

"Whilst he (Im­bert) has said he will re­view the fu­el sub­sidy, he has in ef­fect re­moved the sub­sidy off the su­per and diesel up to 15 per cent. It is in­fla­tion­ary, it will im­pact on the most vul­ner­a­ble and the poor."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed it as an an­ti-peo­ple's Bud­get.

She al­so not­ed that there was few in­cen­tives giv­en to the pri­vate sec­tor and busi­ness­es.

VAT query

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the re­duc­tion in VAT need­ed to be fur­ther ex­plained.

"While they promised to re­duce VAT from 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent, that is fine but at no point did they in­di­cate to the pop­u­la­tion they would be re­mov­ing the ze­ro-rat­ed on items.

(FROM PAGE A3)

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who took notes dur­ing Im­bert's de­liv­ery, replies to the Bud­get at 10 am Fri­day. De­bate will al­so be held on Sat­ur­day, next Mon­day and Tues­day.

To­tal pro­ject­ed rev­enue: $60.287 bil­lion.

Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty: $10.810 bil­lion.

Ed­u­ca­tion/train­ing: $9.7 bil­lion.

Health: $6.088 bil­lion.

Pub­lic util­i­ties: $4.4 bil­lion.

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment: $ 2.2 bil­lion.

Works/in­fra­struc­ture: $1.9 bil­lion.

Hous­ing: $1.6 bil­lion.

Trans­port: $1.5 bil­lion.

Agri­cul­ture: $831 mil­lion.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly: $2.772 bil­lion.

PSIP: $7 bil­lion.

OTH­ER HIGH­LIGHTS:

�2 Rein­tro­duc­tion of ten-year pass­ports from Jan­u­ary 2016, re­moval of im­mi­gra­tion form re­quire­ment for cit­i­zens at ports of en­try.

�2 Rein­tro­duc­tion of the Rent To Own hous­ing pro­gramme.

�2 Re­view/au­dit of PP's Chil­dren's Life Fund.

�2 Free na­tion­al broad­band wire­less net­work, hot spots in pop­u­lar ar­eas.

�2 In­tro­duc­tion in 2016 of a video con­fer­enc­ing sys­tem at Re­mand Yard; pi­lot project for lay mag­is­trates to ad­dress mi­nor of­fences.

�2 In­cen­tives to en­cour­age in­stal­la­tion of CCTV/alarm sys­tems in 2016.

�2 Busi­ness levy in­creased to 0.6 per cent per quar­ter, Green Fund Levy con­tri­bu­tion in­creased to 0.3 per cent per quar­ter from Jan­u­ary.

�2 Grad­u­ate re­cruit­ment pro­gramme cater­ing for 20 peo­ple to be placed at each of the 23 min­istries.

�2 $15 mil­lion to as­sist labour, di­vid­ed be­tween JTUM, NATUC.

�2 On the Job Train­ing stipends in­creased by 20 per cent from De­cem­ber 1.

�2 Tax in­cen­tive frame­work for con­struc­tion in March 2016

�2 In­puts to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor ex­empt from all tax­es/du­ties from Jan­u­ary

�2 Lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form com­plet­ed by Oc­to­ber 2016.

�2 Re­moval of all traf­fic lights be­tween Port-of-Spain to San­gre Grande and con­struc­tion of over­pass­es/in­ter­changes.

�2 New To­ba­go air­port ter­mi­nal, air/sea link im­prove­ments, dry-dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty plans, To­co fer­ry port, new Port-of-Spain con­tain­er port.

�2 Joint Bor­der Se­cu­ri­ty Agency, Sports In­sti­tute of T&T, re­vival of PM's award for Best School Kitchen Gar­den, re­ac­ti­va­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Cen­tre plan.