Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert faces dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions as he presents the bud­get for the fis­cal year 2022/2023 to­mor­row.

Cham­bers of Com­merce in Cen­tral are hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment will not raise the cost of fu­el and add more tax­es to bur­den the pop­u­la­tion.

Mo­torists will have to pay more for gas at the pump and the cost of liv­ing will con­tin­ue to es­ca­late if the Gov­ern­ment acts on its plan to cap the fu­el sub­sidy at $1 bil­lion.

Two of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ma­jor busi­ness cham­bers are call­ing for a bud­get with a fo­cus on sta­bil­i­ty and im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

Cesspool, grass cut­ting, and drain clean­ing op­er­a­tions at the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) have ground to a halt fol­low­ing the gov­ern­ment's fail­ure to re­lease fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed in the last Bud­get.

The bud­get de­bate end­ed quick­ly­on Sat­ur­day af­ter the Op­po­si­tion failed to pro­duce a speak­er.

The Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce (CPLCC) is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to ex­tend the dead­line for the tax amnesty.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has con­firmed that 90 per cent of the na­tion's stu­dents are ac­cess­ing ed­u­ca­tion on­line.

The To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) wants Gov­ern­ment to go fur­ther in its plans for stim­u­lus ini­tia­tives for the tourism sec­tor.

Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, is ques­tion­ing whether the Gov­ern­ment is sig­nalling its in­ten­tion to close down the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NP), with its pro­posed move to sell off and pri­va­tize all of NP’s gas sta­tions.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP says the 2021 Bud­get has gut­ted the po­lice ser­vice, and this will lead to se­vere con­se­quences for law and or­der. 

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, has chal­lenged the Row­ley Ad­min­is­tra­tion to take a five per­cent cut in their salaries, to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the poor and strug­gling cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, will be pre­sent­ing a de­tailed re­sponse to the 2021 Bud­get Pre­sen­ta­tion to­day, in Par­lia­ment, from just af­ter 10 this morn­ing.

There is grow­ing con­cerns that come 2021, many per­sons may not be able to af­ford a for­eign used car far less a new one, be­cause of the re­moval of al­lowances on ve­hi­cles an­nounced in the 2020-2021 Bud­get.

The biggest chunk of the $49.573 bil­lion Bud­get for 2020/2021 has gone to the Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing sec­tor—with an al­lo­ca­tion of some $7.93 bil­lion.

The Gov­ern­ment will re­move fu­el sub­si­dies on pre­mi­um and su­per gaso­line come Jan­u­ary 2021, mak­ing way for gas sta­tion own­ers to set their own prices for fu­el.