GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) po­lit­i­cal leader David Ab­du­lah says the up­com­ing na­tion­al bud­get, the first to be pre­sent­ed by the new Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion, is con­se­quen­tial, serv­ing as a piv­otal test of the gov­ern­ment’s abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate a pre­car­i­ous fi­nan­cial land­scape and de­liv­er on key cam­paign promis­es.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Ab­du­lah not­ed the ad­min­is­tra­tion in­her­it­ed a dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, one that was high­light­ed dur­ing the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign and has since been pub­licly ac­knowl­edged.

“The sit­u­a­tion with forex is a prob­lem. The is­sue of em­ploy­ment arrange­ments, giv­en the fact that CEPEP was vir­tu­al­ly closed down, URP has been vir­tu­al­ly closed down, the Re­for­esta­tion pro­gramme closed down, and so on. Peo­ple want to know what plans there are by the Gov­ern­ment to re­struc­ture, be­cause they claim they would re­struc­ture,” Ab­du­lah said.

He not­ed that three to four months have passed since the elec­tion, and the Gov­ern­ment has not made any an­nounce­ments about what that re­struc­tur­ing would look like.

“So peo­ple are an­tic­i­pat­ing all of that, and how they’re go­ing to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my. What are the quick wins to deal with the forex prob­lem? And what are the more medi­um term plans to get eco­nom­ic growth go­ing,” Ab­du­lah added.

The 2026 bud­get would al­so be seen as a cru­cial de­ter­mi­nant of the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s tra­jec­to­ry, es­pe­cial­ly when fi­nances are tight, re­quir­ing the Gov­ern­ment to man­age ex­pen­di­ture while cre­at­ing room for in­vest­ment and growth.

“They gave them­selves a six-month win­dow to come back with a par­tic­u­lar new plan for the na­tion, where they are say­ing they want it to be more sus­tain­able and more struc­tured, as it were and that win­dow has vir­tu­al­ly closed now. They came in at the end of April, and by the time the bud­get is passed, we’ll be at the end of Oc­to­ber, so that’s six months. So I think that win­dow has closed, and peo­ple can’t hold strain any longer. Peo­ple want to know how are they go­ing to earn a bread when the day comes,” Ab­du­lah ex­plained.

He added the bud­get is ex­pect­ed to shed light on how the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to deal with in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions mat­ters, in­clud­ing out­stand­ing col­lec­tive agree­ments as well as new leg­isla­tive mat­ters (bills and amend­ments) that min­is­ters in­tend to bring to Par­lia­ment in the com­ing fis­cal year.

“I think a lot is go­ing to be said in terms of this Gov­ern­ment’s abil­i­ty to take Trinidad and To­ba­go to a bet­ter place and to im­prove peo­ple’s lives. A lot is go­ing to be learned in this first bud­get,” Ab­du­lah said as he drew par­al­lels to the se­vere aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures of the 1987 bud­get—which saw the NAR gov­ern­ment re­move the Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance and lat­er in­tro­duce Val­ue-Added Tax.