Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has an­nounced a near­ly $60 bil­lion 2024 bud­get, promis­ing to pay pub­lic ser­vants' back­pay of $1 bil­lion by Christ­mas this year, to triple the in­take of po­lice of­fi­cers to 1,000 next year and to al­lo­cate school sup­plies and book grants of $1,000 to needy stu­dents cho­sen through a means test.

To­ba­go will get $2.58 bil­lion, an in­crease of $64 mil­lion over 2023.

Min­is­ter Im­bert, who spoke for over four hours, al­so promised to col­lect prop­er­ty tax in 2024 and to work ag­gres­sive­ly to ad­dress for­eign ex­change sup­ply is­sues.

Here are some high­lights of the pre­sen­ta­tion.

Bud­get fig­ures:

To­tal rev­enue: $54.012B

To­tal Ex­pen­di­ture: $59.209B

Deficit: $5.197B

Oil es­ti­mate: US$85/bar­rel

Gas es­ti­mate: US$5 per mmb­tu

Oil rev­enue: $16.79B

Non-oil rev­enue: $35.54B

Cap­i­tal rev­enue: $1.756b

To­ba­go:

To­ba­go to get $2.585 bil­lion, of which $2.298 bil­lion will be for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture and $260 mil­lion for the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme. $18M for URP and $9.2M for CEPEP. The to­tal is an in­crease of $64.2 mil­lion over 2023.

Po­lice ve­hi­cles:

Ad­di­tion­al al­lo­ca­tion to­talling $80 mil­lion in 2024 for new ve­hi­cles and equip­ment for po­lice over and above 2023 al­lo­ca­tion. This will al­low for more com­mu­ni­ty pa­trols. A fur­ther sum of $50 mil­lion for a river­ine unit at Care­nage sta­tion.

Po­lice train­ing and re­cruits in­crease:

The to­tal num­ber of ac­tive po­lice of­fi­cers is con­stant­ly af­fect­ed by manda­to­ry re­tire­ment, va­ca­tion or oth­er forms of leave. To bring the Po­lice Ser­vice back to full strength, we have man­dat­ed CoP to triple in­take from 300 to 1000 re­cruits in 2024. Schools will be in­clud­ed in the train­ing of re­cruits.

Set­tle­ment with CPO:

$1 bil­lion in back­pay by Christ­mas this year. Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed to make $4000 lump sum pay­ment to re­tirees tax-ex­empt. This will cost us $19 mil­lion, but we be­lieve they de­serve it.

Port scan­ners:

New mod­ern scan­ners are be­ing pro­cured for the ports. Con­tract award­ed at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $90 mil­lion for the sup­ply and de­liv­ery of four large-scale in­spec­tion scan­ners. It will be op­er­a­tionalised in 2024.

Agri­cul­ture:

A fur­ther $400 mil­lion in 2024, com­pris­ing $250 mil­lion as an in­cen­tive to farm­ers and $150 mil­lion for the de­vel­op­ment of in­fra­struc­ture through the Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Com­pa­ny. Re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing 240 kilo­me­tres of ac­cess roads; re­plant­i­ng 900 acres of co­conut; re­vi­tal­is­ing the co­coa in­dus­try; strength­en­ing the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad; re­join­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Cof­fee Or­gan­i­sa­tion; nec­es­sary sup­port to co­coa farm­ers and en­tre­pre­neurs.

Tourism:

Tourism in­dus­try re­vi­talised. From Jan­u­ary to Ju­ly 2023, T&T got 182,508 vis­i­tors. Ho­tel in­dus­try re­port­ed 62% oc­cu­pan­cy rate dur­ing that time.

Caribbean Air­lines:

Caribbean Air­lines to re­turn fleet size to pre-pan­dem­ic lev­el will four ad­di­tion­al ATRs and three Boe­ing 737-800s. Will al­so lease 5 oth­er air­craft to meet re­gion­al de­mand.

$100 mil­lion for hous­ing:

$100 mil­lion to be al­lo­cat­ed for on­go­ing and new projects un­der the hous­ing and vil­lage im­prove­ment pro­gramme. Will yield over 600 hous­ing and vil­lage im­prove­ment units in 2024. We al­lo­cat­ed 2500 units be­tween 2019 and 2023 of which 469 were al­lo­cat­ed in 2023.

School sup­plies & book grant:

Min­is­ter pro­pos­es to pro­vide in 2024, for needy stu­dents in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools - us­ing a means test - a school sup­plies and book grant of $1000. Es­ti­mates this will cost $65 mil­lion in 2024 and as­sist par­ents of 65,000 needy stu­dents. In­tends to con­sult with all stake­hold­ers in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, stan­dard­ise text­books as far as prac­ti­cal and elim­i­nate the ar­rival of new text­books every year, mak­ing it very dif­fi­cult to pass on books to oth­er mem­bers of the fam­i­ly.

Digi­ti­sa­tion:

Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with In­dia to ad­vance dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy.

Lap­tops:

Mak­ing 2,400 fit-for-pur­pose lap­tops for stu­dents and as­so­ci­at­ed staff.

Re­tire­ment age:

We are now con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers for the in­crease in the re­tire­ment age from 60 to 65. This process is at an ad­vanced stage, with ma­jor­i­ty sup­port for in­creas­ing re­tire­ment age.

For­eign ex­change:

Gov­ern­ment to set agen­da on caus­es for in­creased de­mands and de­vise strate­gies for the man­age­ment and al­lo­ca­tion of for­eign cur­ren­cy. We in­tend to move ag­gres­sive­ly to de­vel­op strate­gies to in­crease the repa­tri­a­tion of for­eign ex­change earned over­seas by lo­cal and for­eign busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as this is key to an in­creased sup­ply of for­eign ex­changes. In 2024, the gov­ern­ment will cre­ate new arrange­ments for pref­er­en­tial ac­cess to for­eign ex­change for qual­i­fied small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es.

Prop­er­ty tax:

The col­lec­tion of prop­er­ty tax­es will be ef­fec­tive in the year 2024. Res­i­den­tial tax­es will be col­lect­ed by mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties. The base for cal­cu­lat­ing prop­er­ty tax­es is the an­nu­al rental val­ue of prop­er­ties. Prop­er­ty own­ers and oc­cu­piers will soon be­gin to re­ceive no­tices stat­ing the amount of prop­er­ty tax they're re­quired to pay, which, when they see the ac­tu­al rates for them­selves, will bring the cha­rade per­pe­trat­ed by those op­po­site to an end.

Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty:

We en­vis­age that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty will sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce the cur­rent es­ti­mat­ed tax gap of up to $10 bil­lion.