Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Bud­get 2024 will fo­cus on crime, in­fra­struc­ture and an­swer the ques­tion of whether the min­i­mum wage will be in­creased.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that based on the trend in the last three bud­gets read by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, there is al­so ex­pect­ed to be an em­pha­sis and con­tin­u­a­tion of Gov­ern­ment poli­cies in cer­tain ar­eas, es­pe­cial­ly food se­cu­ri­ty, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and en­er­gy.

In fis­cal 2024, Im­bert is like­ly to ad­dress wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with the pub­lic ser­vice which have dragged with­out con­clu­sion for fis­cal 2023. If the Gov­ern­ment suc­cess­ful­ly con­cludes ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and in­creas­es the min­i­mum wage as lob­bied for by the trade unions, pub­lic ser­vants and low­er-in­come work­ers would have in­creased in­come at their dis­pos­al.

Im­bert’s 9th bud­get will be an­oth­er deficit one but it will be the sec­ond to last one be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion due in 2025.

The deficit for 2023 and ahead in­to 2024 is like­ly to be small­er, build­ing on the $329 mil­lion deficit of 2022 as the Gov­ern­ment moves to­ward its goal of a bal­anced bud­get.

T&T has had bud­get deficits for the past 15 years.

The deficits since the 2016 fis­cal year have been as fol­lows: 2016—$7.97 bil­lion, 2017—$13.53 bil­lion, 2018—$5.69 bil­lion, 2019—$4.02 bil­lion, 2020—$16.68 bil­lion, 2021—$13.74 bil­lion, and 2022—$0.329 bil­lion

The coun­try is sad­dled with re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture (it in­cludes trans­fers and sub­si­dies, and salaries to pub­lic ser­vants) which ac­counts for 54 per cent of the an­nu­al bud­get.

Bud­get 2024 is hap­pen­ing at a time when the uptick in crime is high, a rate in­crease for util­i­ties is still in dis­cus­sion even as cit­i­zens com­plain about lack of wa­ter, forex lim­i­ta­tions are hurt­ing small busi­ness­es and the av­er­age cit­i­zen is lim­it­ed to US$200 at the bank counter to en­gage in in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el, road re­pair is not hap­pen­ing or not hap­pen­ing fast enough, wage ne­go­ti­a­tions are in abeyance, and the chal­lenges of cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­i­ty have to be tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in­to every de­ci­sion mov­ing for­ward. And at every turn, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that the dol­lar will not be de­val­ued.

With bil­lions spent on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty over the years and se­ri­ous crimes on the in­crease, the onus is on the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure the coun­try is safe for its cit­i­zens. While laws and fines are in place, en­force­ment of them is not—it spans from the TTPS to lit­ter war­dens to even the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion with re­gard to heavy trucks on the road.

The Gov­ern­ment’s time­frame to have the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) and the Gam­bling Com­mis­sion func­tion­al in 2023 will now shift in­to fis­cal 2024. While it an­nounced ma­jor changes to the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC), this did not ma­te­ri­alise in fis­cal 2023 and will move on to 2024.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form, which the Gov­ern­ment cam­paigned for in the re­cent Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, will be im­ple­ment­ed in the next two years as prop­er­ty tax comes in­to force in 2024. It will mark a fun­da­men­tal shift in gov­er­nance as more pow­ers will be placed in the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and mu­nic­i­pal po­lice.

But there are glim­mers—the sign­ing of an agree­ment with Venezuela to ex­ploit the Drag­on Field which should se­cure much-need­ed gas to keep the en­er­gy sec­tor breath­ing, the Pro­cure­ment Act is now in force, and the ex­pan­sion of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor which re­duces the coun­try’s de­pen­den­cy on en­er­gy rev­enue.

Cen­tral Bank da­ta

On Fri­day, the Cen­tral Bank re­port­ed that da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) in­di­cate that re­al GDP grew by 3.0 per cent (year-on-year) in the first quar­ter of 2023 re­flect­ing strong ex­pan­sion in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor (4.2 per cent) ac­com­pa­nied by mar­gin­al growth in the en­er­gy sec­tor (0.3 per cent).

Growth in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor is key to ex­pand­ing and di­ver­si­fy­ing the T&T econ­o­my.

The CBTT not­ed that in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2023, in­di­ca­tors mon­i­tored by the Cen­tral Bank point to a steady rise in ac­tiv­i­ty in ma­jor non-en­er­gy sec­tors in­clud­ing Trans­porta­tion and Stor­age, Whole­sale and Re­tail Trade (ex­clud­ing En­er­gy), Elec­tric­i­ty and Wa­ter (ex­clud­ing Gas) and Con­struc­tion.

It is un­cer­tain whether Im­bert would choose to ad­dress po­ten­tial­ly thorny is­sues such as in­creas­ing the con­tri­bu­tion rate for em­ploy­ers and em­ploy­ees to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem, or whether he will kick it down the road. In Bud­get 2021, Im­bert had ob­served that at the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB), with ex­pen­di­ture on ben­e­fits now ex­ceed­ing con­tri­bu­tion in­come, the Gov­ern­ment would take what­ev­er steps nec­es­sary to main­tain the in­tegri­ty and vi­a­bil­i­ty of the NIB, in­clud­ing a se­ri­ous ex­am­i­na­tion of the need to ex­tend the re­tire­ment age to 65. Giv­en the con­sul­ta­tions which took place in the fis­cal year, an up­date will be pro­vid­ed in the 2024 Bud­get. (See Page 8)

In­fra­struc­ture

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley sig­nalled the Gov­ern­ment’s in­tent to fo­cus on the in­fra­struc­ture when, at a press con­fer­ence a few weeks ago, he said that Na­tion­al Quar­ries would be moved to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT).

For Ro­han Sinanan, the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, it means that sev­er­al state en­ter­pris­es were put un­der his port­fo­lio in the last year–Lake As­phalt of Trinidad and To­ba­go (1978) Lim­it­ed, Na­tion­al Ma­rine Main­te­nance Ser­vices Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (CARI­DOC), Sec­ondary Road Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and Im­prove­ment Com­pa­ny, and now Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

Sinanan ex­plained that the State has sig­nalled its in­tent to un­der­take a mas­sive road re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme with Na­tion­al Quar­ries as a key stake­hold­er in the un­der­tak­ing of this ex­er­cise as a main pro­duc­er of ag­gre­gate.

He told Guardian Me­dia the ad­di­tion of these new state en­ter­pris­es to his port­fo­lio was “wel­comed as it is aligned with the over­all op­er­a­tions of the min­istry in de­liv­er­ing our man­date”.

“The de­ci­sion to as­sign state en­ter­pris­es to min­istries lies sole­ly with the Prime Min­is­ter, who then makes a rec­om­men­da­tion to the Pres­i­dent. Once the min­istry re­ceives the of­fi­cial in­struc­tions, mech­a­nisms are then im­ple­ment­ed to in­te­grate them in­to the over­ar­ch­ing strate­gic Vi­sion and Mis­sion of the min­istry,” he said.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the Gov­ern­ment ap­proved Her­bert George to chair Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed even though he al­ready chairs the Sec­ondary Roads Com­pa­ny and NID­CO.

“In this con­text, the align­ment of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port with the Na­tion­al Quar­ries can be viewed as a strength­en­ing of the val­ue chain in the road in­fra­struc­ture sec­tor. A change of the Board, un­der these cir­cum­stances, is not ab­nor­mal and the State has ex­pressed its ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the val­ued and ex­em­plary ser­vice pro­vid­ed over the en­su­ing pe­ri­od,” he said.

“The three state en­ter­pris­es iden­ti­fied in your ques­tion have com­ple­men­tary roles as they are all geared to­ward the up­grade and main­te­nance of the na­tion’s road net­work. NID­CO ex­e­cutes in­fra­struc­tur­al projects on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port; the Na­tion­al Quar­ries has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­vid­ing one of the in­puts for the con­struc­tion of in­fra­struc­ture projects and the Sec­ondary Road Com­pa­ny is an­oth­er en­ti­ty that is rel­e­vant to the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and up­grade of our road sys­tem,” Sinanan not­ed.

In his 2020 Bud­get, Im­bert al­so in­di­cat­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to de­vel­op a mar­itime in­dus­try from the as­sets it ac­quired at CL Ma­rine.

In Bud­get 2022, he said the Gov­ern­ment was tak­ing steps to build a ship re­pair and main­te­nance fa­cil­i­ty in the west­ern penin­su­la util­is­ing the as­set base of CL Ma­rine Lim­it­ed and its sub­sidiaries.

“With a com­mer­cial dry-dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty, CL Ma­rine Lim­it­ed through the re­cent­ly-es­tab­lished whol­ly-owned state en­ter­prise: Na­tion­al Ma­rine and Main­te­nance Ser­vices Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, pre­sent­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for a pri­vate-pub­lic part­ner­ship. We are of the view that an ex­pe­ri­enced in­ter­na­tion­al ship­builder could es­tab­lish a state-of-the-art ship re­pair and main­te­nance fa­cil­i­ty for both com­mer­cial and pub­lic sail­ing craft in the West­ern Penin­su­la,” he said.

Sinanan said that a ten­der was is­sued by NID­CO for a new dock­yard. He said sub­mis­sions were re­ceived and were cur­rent­ly be­ing eval­u­at­ed.

In fis­cal 2024, a new op­er­a­tor would prob­a­bly be iden­ti­fied for the Port of Port-of-Spain.

States of im­ple­men­ta­tion

So how does Bud­get 2023 stand up in these cir­cum­stances?

Key items which Im­bert iden­ti­fied for im­ple­men­ta­tion are in dif­fer­ent stages while some have not yet got off the ground.

• The Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty was not op­er­a­tionalised as ex­pect­ed in fis­cal 2023. A di­rec­tor gen­er­al has not yet been iden­ti­fied.

• The Gam­bling Con­trol Com­mis­sion—In March 2022, Im­bert ap­point­ed Stephen Tang Nian as chair­man of the Com­mis­sion and Ste­van Thomas as deputy chair­man. How­ev­er, it has not been op­er­a­tionalised or added rev­enue to the State. There are ad­ver­tise­ments for key po­si­tions

• Prop­er­ty Tax—Im­bert said the Gov­ern­ment would move to im­ple­ment the col­lec­tion of tax­es in fis­cal 2023. This is ex­pect­ed to hap­pen in fis­cal 2024 as part of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form.

• Mort­gage Bank—The Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Fi­nance Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and the Home Mort­gage Bank will be merged to cre­ate a new en­ti­ty–the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Bank, to align more close­ly with the na­tion­al hous­ing pro­gramme. The board was changed in Ju­ly and the Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that leg­is­la­tion is be­fore the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance on the mat­ter.

• Na­tion­al Sta­tis­ti­cal In­sti­tute–The Na­tion­al Sta­tis­ti­cal In­sti­tute has been ham­strung from mov­ing for­ward be­cause it re­quires a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment to be passed.

• Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Au­thor­i­ty–Im­bert had an­nounced the es­tab­lish­ment of a Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones Au­thor­i­ty de­signed to reg­u­late des­ig­nat­ed Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zones. In Ju­ly 2022, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon ap­point­ed a chair­man, Karen Tom Yew-Jar­dine.

• Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency—Im­bert had said there are cur­rent­ly 13 en­ti­ties, which per­form trade and in­vest­ment pro­mo­tion func­tions in T&T. “A new­ly es­tab­lished Trade and In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Agency will achieve these ob­jec­tives by re­duc­ing the need for mul­ti­ple over­lap­ping agen­cies du­pli­cat­ing the same work,” he had said as he an­nounced that In­vestTT and Ex­portTT would be merged. That has not been com­plet­ed in fis­cal 2023.

• Na­tion­al Dig­i­tal ID—Im­bert had said that the Gov­ern­ment hoped to in­tro­duce a pi­lot project but it has not ma­te­ri­alised.

• The lib­er­al­i­sa­tion of the liq­uid pe­tro­le­um fu­el mar­ket—De­spite pass­ing the leg­is­la­tion to lib­er­alise the fu­el mar­ket in Par­lia­ment, it has not yet been im­ple­ment­ed. It will car­ry over in­to Bud­get 2024. Im­bert had al­so an­nounced the sale of NP and its gas sta­tions but no fur­ther de­vel­op­ment has since been an­nounced. Ac­cord­ing to its web­site, NP has about 160 gas sta­tions.