DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Un­cer­tain­ty over the tim­ing of the mid-year bud­get re­view is height­en­ing con­cerns among unions, as a for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter warns of a widen­ing fis­cal deficit and ris­ing in­fla­tion, even as work­ers con­tin­ue to press for long-promised back­pay.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that a date for the re­view will be an­nounced fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

How­ev­er, no of­fi­cial time­line has yet been con­firmed.

The po­lit­i­cal stakes are al­so ris­ing ahead of the pre­sen­ta­tion.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath, dur­ing a par­lia­men­tary de­bate last Fri­day, sig­nalled that the de­bate could bring sig­nif­i­cant dis­clo­sures.

“In that de­bate, we will tell you what they did to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Whose friend, whose fam­i­ly, whose fi­nancier, whose out­side man, whose out­side woman was re­ceiv­ing the largesse of the state,” he said.

Be­yond the po­lit­i­cal rhetoric, eco­nom­ic con­cerns are mount­ing.

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne says the coun­try is like­ly head­ing in­to a more dif­fi­cult fis­cal pe­ri­od, warn­ing that cit­i­zens hop­ing for im­me­di­ate re­lief may be dis­ap­point­ed.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Browne said the 2025 bud­get was based on an oil price as­sump­tion of US$73.25 per bar­rel, while ac­tu­al prices at the time were clos­er to US$60.

Al­though glob­al en­er­gy prices surged in Feb­ru­ary, due to the con­flict in­volv­ing Iran, Browne ac­knowl­edged that the ben­e­fits will like­ly be felt in the next six months.

Fur­ther­more, he be­lieves it is un­like­ly to trans­late di­rect­ly in­to re­lief for house­holds.

“In terms of the num­bers, it would on­ly have had one month’s im­pact. And that would have been be­cause the midyear ends on March 31st... The like­li­hood is that in­fla­tion will get worse. The longer the im­passe in the Mid­dle East con­tin­ues, the greater the im­pact in terms of gov­ern­ment ex­pen­di­ture and the greater the im­pact in terms of over­all pric­ing.”

He added that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on the en­er­gy sec­tor, with no mean­ing­ful di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion achieved so far, a process he ad­mit­ted could take ten to 15 years.

More­over, Browne said glob­al en­er­gy prices are adding new pres­sure to gov­ern­ment spend­ing.

“The one thing that we’ve no­ticed is that en­er­gy prices be­tween Feb­ru­ary 28th and to­day’s date, the prices have shown no sign of de­clin­ing. So you’re talk­ing about more than a 42 per cent in­crease in en­er­gy prices. That is an­oth­er push in terms of the ex­pen­di­ture side that the Gov­ern­ment will have to face. By de­f­i­n­i­tion, if we con­tin­ue im­port­ing en­er­gy, and we will, be­cause we’re no longer pro­duc­ing diesel and gaso­line, then by de­f­i­n­i­tion, the Gov­ern­ment, and Paria in par­tic­u­lar, is fac­ing larg­er en­er­gy prices,” he said.

“So since the prices of the pump are set by the gov­ern­ment, and they did re­duce the price of gaso­line in the last bud­get, it’s un­clear what is the cost price of gaso­line, and who is pay­ing for it. Sim­i­lar­ly, LPG cook­ing gas, the price of that is al­so like­ly to have gone up. If the price has been go­ing up, and the im­port­ed price has been go­ing up, but it’s not com­ing on at the pump, some­body has to be pay­ing for it. And that some­body is Paria. And if Paria does not have the cash for it, it’s gov­ern­ment fund­ing Paria, which is one of the prob­lems that Petrotrin al­ways ran in­to. Paria is like­ly to be in that po­si­tion mov­ing for­ward.”

Browne al­so point­ed to mount­ing ex­pen­di­ture pres­sures, in­clud­ing in­creased Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme con­tri­bu­tions and re­cent wage agree­ments with pub­lic sec­tor unions such as the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW). This, he said, is com­pound­ed by the Gov­ern­ment’s re­luc­tance to in­tro­duce new tax­es.

NUGFW, TTUTA seek clar­i­ty on out­stand­ing wages

As the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares its fis­cal up­date, unions say their pri­or­i­ty re­mains clear: pay­ment of out­stand­ing wages.

NUGFW Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Christo­pher Streete says it is still await­ing firm time­lines for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of new salary rates and the pay­ment of ar­rears.

“Yes, we are ex­pect­ing and hop­ing that the Min­is­ter will def­i­nite­ly give us dates. Right now, we have June or Ju­ly, but we have noth­ing def­i­nite in terms of the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the new rates of pay. Or pre­cise­ly when they have back­pay,” he said.

The union is al­so call­ing for progress on pen­sion re­form, not­ing that dai­ly-paid work­ers re­main among the few cat­e­gories of state em­ploy­ees with­out pen­sion ben­e­fits, de­spite on­go­ing dis­cus­sions to make them pen­sion­able.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) has tak­en a firmer stance, warn­ing it is no longer pre­pared to ac­cept de­lays.

“TTUTA ex­pects their mem­bers’ back­pay by the end of May and no lat­er. Yes, the mid-year bud­get re­view will ul­ti­mate­ly come with ad­just­ments, etc. How­ev­er, suf­fi­cient time would have been giv­en for pay­ment. That mid-year re­view is a last re­sort in the eyes of TTUTA.

“Af­ter wait­ing more than one year for the afore­men­tioned back­pay, there has been ab­solute­ly NO com­mu­ni­ca­tion with TTUTA on time­lines, etc,” said TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe.

Last year’s mid-year bud­get re­view was de­liv­ered on June 18, but with no date yet an­nounced for this year’s pre­sen­ta­tion, un­cer­tain­ty re­mains over both tim­ing and im­pact.

For now, econ­o­mists warn that while en­er­gy prices may be ris­ing, so too are the pres­sures on gov­ern­ment spend­ing, leav­ing the coun­try fac­ing a fa­mil­iar bal­anc­ing act be­tween fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty and pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions.