On Mon­day, Oc­to­ber 13, 2025, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo pre­sent­ed the first bud­get of the ad­min­is­tra­tion that was elect­ed on April 28, 2025, for a five-year term of of­fice. Mr Tan­coo’s bud­get was ti­tled T&T first: Build­ing eco­nom­ic fair­ness through ac­count­able fis­cal poli­cies.

In his maid­en bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Mr Tan­coo pro­ject­ed that the Gov­ern­ment would col­lect $55.367 bil­lion in rev­enue and its to­tal spend­ing would amount to $59.232 bil­lion.

So, by the Min­is­ter’s ac­count­ing, the pro­ject­ed fis­cal deficit for the 2026 fi­nan­cial year would be $3.865 bil­lion.

In T&T, fis­cal deficits have to be fund­ed, which means that any­body read­ing or lis­ten­ing to Mr Tan­coo’s bud­get would be­lieve that the Gov­ern­ment would need to bor­row $3.865 bil­lion in the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year—which start­ed on Oc­to­ber 1, 2025 and ends on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2026— to ad­dress the dif­fer­ence be­tween what the Gov­ern­ment hopes to col­lect and what it ex­pects to spend.

Giv­en the bor­row­ing that the Gov­ern­ment has un­der­tak­en over the last 15 years, many of T&T’s busi­ness groups, trade union or­gan­i­sa­tions, and house­holds would have tak­en away from the 2026 bud­get the mes­sage of as­tute fi­nan­cial man­age­ment by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, which pre­sent­ed a bud­get with a fis­cal deficit of on­ly $3.865 bil­lion.

The bud­get doc­u­ments that ac­com­pa­ny Mr Tan­coo’s pre­sen­ta­tion speech tell a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, how­ev­er.

Those doc­u­ments—which are avail­able on the web­site of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, for any­one to ver­i­fy—dis­close a fis­cal deficit of over $9 bil­lion and bor­row­ing to fi­nance that deficit of close to $19 bil­lion.

Drilling down in­to the num­bers

In 2026, ac­cord­ing to the Draft Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue doc­u­ment, to­tal cur­rent rev­enue for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year is es­ti­mat­ed at $52.970 bil­lion and to­tal cap­i­tal rev­enue at $711.2 mil­lion for to­tal rev­enue of $53.681 bil­lion.

To­tal cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture is pro­ject­ed to be $56.125 bil­lion and to­tal cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­ture $6.649 bil­lion, for to­tal ex­pen­di­ture of $62.774 bil­lion.

That to­tal ex­pen­di­ture num­ber in the 2026 Draft Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue doc­u­ment is the ex­act same num­ber as the Gov­ern­ment’s grand to­tal pro­posed spend­ing of $62.774 bil­lion in the 2026 Draft Es­ti­mates of Ex­pen­di­ture doc­u­ment. That doc­u­ment con­tains a foot­note, which states, “De­vel­op­ment pro­gramme ex­pen­di­ture of $2,696,310,000 ex­cludes the sum of $1,403,690, 000 which is fund­ed from the In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Fund.”

In short, there­fore, the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­get doc­u­ments in­di­cate to­tal rev­enue of $53.681 bil­lion and to­tal spend­ing of $62.774 bil­lion. From my cal­cu­la­tions, those num­bers are in­dica­tive of a deficit of $9.093 bil­lion.

Mr Tan­coo would need to ex­plain the fol­low­ing:

* The $1.686 bil­lion dis­par­i­ty be­tween the rev­enue num­ber in the bud­get speech of $55.367 bil­lion and the to­tal rev­enue es­ti­mate num­ber in the 2026 Draft Es­ti­mates of Rev­enue of $53.681 bil­lion;

* The $3.542 bil­lion dis­par­i­ty be­tween the ex­pen­di­ture pro­jec­tion of $59.232 bil­lion in his bud­get speech and the $62.774 bil­lion that can be found in the 2026 Draft Es­ti­mate of Ex­pen­di­ture;

* The mea­sures the Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es to im­ple­ment that would in­crease rev­enue and re­duce ex­pen­di­ture.

This should not be too dif­fi­cult for him, as the 2026 bud­get speech es­ti­mates that:

—$575 mil­lion would be col­lect­ed from the levy of 0.25 per cent on the T&T as­sets of com­mer­cial banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies;

—$70 mil­lion from the land­lord busi­ness sur­charge;

—$269 mil­lion from the elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge on T&TEC’s in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial cus­tomers;

—$1 bil­lion from in­creased tax­es on al­co­hol, to­bac­co prod­ucts and us­age of Cus­toms;

—$40 mil­lion in Cus­toms du­ties from the im­por­ta­tion of lux­u­ry elec­tric ve­hi­cles;

—An undis­closed amount from the new 5 per cent tax on the CIF val­ue of im­ports of sin­gle-use plas­tic;

—$180 mil­lion on dri­ving penal­ties.

My es­ti­mate is that these new tax­es could gen­er­ate over $2 bil­lion in the 2026 fi­nan­cial year, but Mr Tan­coo did not in­di­cate in his bud­get speech the rev­enue im­pli­ca­tions of:

* The an­nounce­ment of the im­me­di­ate re­duc­tion in the pump price of su­per gaso­line by $1 per litre;

* The bud­get pro­pos­al to re­move Val­ue-Added Tax (VAT) from a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of ba­sic food items “in­clud­ing ta­ble salt, mau­by, co­conut wa­ter, as well as lo­cal­ly pro­duced pump­kin, wa­ter­mel­on, cu­cum­ber, let­tuce and toma­toes, amongst oth­ers;”

* The rev­enue and for­eign ex­change im­pact of in­creas­ing the per­mis­si­ble age of im­por­ta­tion of for­eign-used cars from three years and un­der, to six years and un­der, from the date of man­u­fac­ture;

* The re­moval of tax on pri­vate pen­sions; and

* The re­view of the ex­ist­ing VAT regime and, if fea­si­ble, its re­place­ment by a sales tax.

Bor­row­ing $19B?

The size of the bud­get deficit in any fi­nan­cial year has al­ways matched the amount of bor­row­ing the Gov­ern­ment would need to un­der­take to fund the deficit.

The 2026 fi­nan­cial year is dif­fer­ent.

Mr Tan­coo’s es­ti­mat­ed 2026 bud­get deficit is $3.865 bil­lion. So why does the draft es­ti­mate of rev­enue in­di­cate that the Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es to bor­row $18.965 bil­lion, which is $15.1 bil­lion more than the pro­ject­ed bud­get deficit?

Why would Mr Tan­coo in­di­cate that the 2026 bor­row­ing re­quire­ment is $3.865 bil­lion, when it is re­al­ly $18.965 bil­lion?

Why would the rev­enue es­ti­mate for 2026 in­di­cate that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bor­row $15.1 bil­lion more than out­lined in the bud­get speech, when the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance KNOWS that S&P Glob­al Rat­ing is pre­pared to down­grade T&T to junk bond sta­tus if the fis­cal ac­count is not rec­ti­fied?

The first, and most ob­vi­ous sup­po­si­tion, is that much of the $18.965 bil­lion the Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es to bor­row in the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year would go to fund the 10 per cent wage in­crease to em­ploy­ees in the pub­lic ser­vice. This is a promise Mr Tan­coo said will be de­liv­ered.

“In fur­ther­ance of the con­clu­sion of ne­go­ti­a­tions for the civ­il ser­vice, statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) for the pe­ri­ods 2014-2016 and 2017-2019, the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter has in­struct­ed me to ad­vise the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to sub­mit a re­vised of­fer of 10 per cent,” he said.

But Mr Tan­coo added, “I wish to ad­vise the mem­bers of the teach­ing ser­vice, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, and the Port of Spain and San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tions that this Gov­ern­ment will rat­i­fy the Col­lec­tive Agree­ments signed in April 2025 be­tween the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer and their re­spec­tive As­so­ci­a­tions/Union/Com­mit­tee.

“The re­cur­rent cost of im­ple­ment­ing these agree­ments is es­ti­mat­ed at $214 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, with ar­rears of $730 mil­lion as of De­cem­ber 2025.”

Does the ref­er­ence to “these agree­ments” in the pre­vi­ous sen­tence re­fer to teach­ers, De­fence Force and the city cor­po­ra­tion em­ploy­ees on­ly?

If yes, what does the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion es­ti­mate the re­cur­rent and back­pay cost of pay­ing civ­il ser­vants and em­ploy­ees of statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties and the THA a re­vised of­fer of 10 per cent for the pe­ri­ods 2014-2016 and 2017-2019?

The CPO must have that in­for­ma­tion, so why was it omit­ted from Mr Tan­coo’s bud­get speech?

And why would the draft es­ti­mates of rev­enue in­di­cate that of the $18.965 bil­lion the Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es to bor­row in 2026, some $8.111 bil­lion would be in TT dol­lars and $10.853 bil­lion (US$1.6 bil­lion) would be in for­eign cur­ren­cies.

If the Gov­ern­ment is bor­row­ing mon­ey to fund the high­er cost of salaries, why does it need to bor­row in for­eign cur­ren­cies?

And what does Mr Tan­coo mean by, “On the com­ple­tion of the bar­gain­ing process, we will work with Re­pub­lic, First Cit­i­zens Bank and the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) to find a com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tion to dis­charge this na­tion­al oblig­a­tion?”

Does he pro­pose that T&T’s two largest com­mer­cial banks and its Na­tion­al In­sur­ance provider should lend the Gov­ern­ment mon­ey, or raise mon­ey for it, to fund high­er salaries for pub­lic ser­vants, just be­cause that was a cam­paign promise made in the last gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign?

Would that be pru­dent and re­spon­si­ble lend­ing by those com­mer­cial banks and the NIB, all three of which are con­trolled by the Gov­ern­ment?