Gail Alexan­der &

Da­reece Po­lo

A date for the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2026 Bud­get will “most like­ly” be an­nounced to­day, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day.

Up­on her re­turn to the coun­try on Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the bud­get date would be re­vealed “very soon.”

The 2024–2025 fis­cal year con­clud­ed on Sep­tem­ber 30 and the 2026 bud­get and its fi­nan­cial pro­vi­sions must be in place by the end of Oc­to­ber.

It was an­tic­i­pat­ed that a bud­get date might have been re­vealed yes­ter­day at the usu­al post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence but the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice an­nounced that the me­dia con­fer­ence would in­stead be held to­day.

Sub­se­quent­ly, of­fi­cials said the bud­get date would “most like­ly” be an­nounced to­day.

On Wednes­day evening, the PM said her Gov­ern­ment’s first bud­get since tak­ing of­fice will be pre­sent­ed “very soon,” but did not give the date.

Speak­ing in the VIP lounge at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port af­ter re­turn­ing from New York, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the bud­get was still be­ing worked on.

“The bud­get will be soon. Whilst we were in Wash­ing­ton, we were still work­ing on it — my Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, my Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, all of the mem­bers here, be­cause they all have min­istries. That work has been on­go­ing. The bud­get will be ready when the bud­get is ready, but it will be very, very soon,” she said.

Pressed on the date, Per­sad-Bisses­sar replied: “I know the date. The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance just hand­ed me a pack­age. I would like to see it be­fore I an­nounce the date. If it is, as we’ve been work­ing along, and I’m com­fort­able with it, you’d get your date soon.”

Whether the pre­sen­ta­tion date will be the ini­tial­ly tipped Oc­to­ber 6 — or Oc­to­ber 10 or 13 — sources yes­ter­day de­scribed it as a “mov­ing tar­get,” sub­ject to con­tin­u­ous change.

Two weeks ago, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the bud­get would be pre­sent­ed in “ear­ly Oc­to­ber.” She al­so said it would be a deficit bud­get. At that time, of­fi­cials had sig­nalled Oc­to­ber 6 as the like­ly de­liv­ery.

How­ev­er, be­fore her US trip, the PM in­di­cat­ed she had giv­en min­is­ters the first draft of the bud­get’s re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture to re­view, al­low­ing them to pri­ori­tise or ad­just ar­eas of fo­cus. She said then the Gov­ern­ment had “many pro­pos­als” still be­ing fi­nalised.

Re­cent­ly, Min­istry of Fi­nance of­fi­cials spec­u­lat­ed that de­liv­ery could be around “mid-month.” As a re­sult, dates such as Oc­to­ber 10 and Oc­to­ber 13 were float­ed.

Sources not­ed, how­ev­er, that if the bud­get is de­liv­ered lat­er than Oc­to­ber 6, it would like­ly lead to “very long, marathon de­bate and dis­cus­sion ses­sions un­til the ear­ly morn­ing hours” to com­plete the re­quired pro­ce­dures.

They ex­plained that 15 days of pro­ce­dures are re­quired fol­low­ing a bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion:

The Op­po­si­tion Leader must re­spond with­in 72 hours of the bud­get be­ing read.

This is fol­lowed by five days of ex­am­i­na­tion by Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

A Sen­ate de­bate fol­lows, last­ing be­tween three and five days.

“But there is al­so a time con­straint, since the Di­vali hol­i­day is on Oc­to­ber 20, and the bud­get must be passed by the end of Oc­to­ber,” they added.

Gov­ern­ment sources con­firmed yes­ter­day that the bud­get pack­age is ready. They cit­ed, for ex­am­ple, hints from Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials that the bud­get would be “good for agri­cul­ture.”

They al­so said the an­nounce­ment of a date could come “…even on the same day the bud­get is to be de­liv­ered.”

Stake­hold­ers have high hopes

Among the lat­est rec­om­men­da­tions for the fis­cal pack­age, the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­tired Per­sons (TTARP) yes­ter­day called for pri­or­i­ty im­ple­men­ta­tion of the fol­low­ing:

No PAYE tax for gov­ern­ment pen­sion­ers who re­ceive a pen­sion above $7,500 per month (Cur­rent­ly, those who re­ceive less than $7,500 are not taxed).

In­crease the com­pul­so­ry re­tire­ment age to 65 years, while main­tain­ing the op­tion to re­tire ear­li­er.

Re­move VAT on med­ical ser­vices and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals for peo­ple aged 60 and over at pri­vate hos­pi­tals and in­sti­tu­tions.

TTARP al­so iden­ti­fied three ar­eas they said should not be im­ple­ment­ed:

De­val­u­a­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go dol­lar.

Any in­crease in NIS con­tri­bu­tions.

The clo­sure of state-owned en­ter­pris­es. re­sult­ing in un­em­ploy­ment.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan: En­er­gy, re­cy­cling re­forms need­ed

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan has rec­om­mend­ed a set of en­er­gy and en­vi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing strength­en­ing the deep­wa­ter fis­cal regime.

She said: “The re­cent 2025 Deep­wa­ter Com­pet­i­tive Bid­ding Round at­tract­ed on­ly four bids for four of the 26 blocks of­fered. We rec­om­mend the in­tro­duc­tion of a more com­pet­i­tive fis­cal regime to at­tract world-class in­vestors with the fi­nan­cial strength, ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy, and ex­per­tise re­quired for deep­wa­ter ex­plo­ration.”

She al­so sug­gest­ed pro­vid­ing in­cen­tives for en­er­gy-ef­fi­cient tech­nolo­gies across do­mes­tic and com­mer­cial sec­tors and im­ple­ment­ing waste re­duc­tion and re­cy­cling ini­tia­tives to ex­pand the reuse of re­cy­clable ma­te­ri­als.

“This will ease pres­sure on land­fills that are ap­proach­ing ca­pac­i­ty, con­tribute to a clean­er en­vi­ron­ment, and help ad­dress re­cur­ring flood­ing caused by im­prop­er waste dis­pos­al,” she said.