Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The T&T Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­DA) says the 2025-2026 na­tion­al bud­get was ex­cel­lent.

TTA­DA pres­i­dent Visham Bab­wah said the re­duc­tion in the age of for­eign-used cars per­mit­ted to be im­port­ed in­to T&T from three to six years will re­sult in low­er ve­hi­cle prices, sav­ings in for­eign ex­change and fu­el sav­ings com­pound­ed with the re­duc­tion of fu­el prices.

Cit­ing an ex­am­ple, Bab­wah said the Nis­san AD Wag­on was in high de­mand un­til it went out of pro­duc­tion in 2024. Bab­wah said deal­ers can now im­port this ve­hi­cle for sub­stan­tial­ly less, not­ing that it op­er­ates on su­per gaso­line and is not a hy­brid or elec­tric ve­hi­cle.

He said there are many more sim­i­lar makes and mod­els that can be ac­cessed such as the Toy­ota Probox, Toy­ota Axio and Hon­da Civic.

“I be­lieve that the last PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion was de­ceiv­ing the pub­lic where they were us­ing an in­flat­ed bud­get sup­port­ed by heavy tax­a­tion of which a hand­ful of per­sons ben­e­fit­ted through gov­ern­ment con­tracts. If rev­enues are man­aged and there is cut off in nepo­tism the coun­try can have a bud­get of $59 bil­lion.”

Bab­wah said the re­in­state­ment of tax­es on lux­u­ry elec­tric ve­hi­cles would not af­fect low­er and mid­dle in­come earn­ers.

“I be­lieve that the av­er­age man stands to ben­e­fit from this bud­get, where­as in the past the up­per class reaped the re­wards of tax­ing the poor.”

Bab­wah said he sup­ports the land­lord tax as he be­lieves peo­ple who earn in­come in T&T should pay tax­es her and not dodge the sys­tem, once the coun­try’s tax dol­lars are be­ing used wise­ly.

He said the in­crease in the CESS fee at the port was not sub­stan­tial to cause any price in­creas­es.