Renu­ka Singh

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert re­quest­ed some $60,000 for a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee that nev­er met in 2021.

He made the same re­quest in the 2022 bud­get and of­fered very lit­tle ex­pla­na­tion when asked about it at yes­ter­day's Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Oropouche West Dave Tan­coo ques­tioned Im­bert about the re­quest but did not get much of an an­swer.

"Min­is­ter you had an es­ti­mate of $60,000 in 2021 but no spend in 2021, yet you've re­turned to the House to ask for an ad­di­tion­al spend of $60,000. Is it that the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee did not func­tion in 2021?" Tan­coo asked.

"No," Im­bert said.

Tan­coo went on to ask if the Min­is­ter could give de­tails on the Cab­i­net ap­point­ed com­mit­tee, who they were and its role and func­tion.

"There wasn't any," Im­bert said.

But de­spite the stilt­ed re­spons­es from Im­bert, Tan­coo kept push­ing.

"Min­is­ter, you are ask­ing this Com­mit­tee for $60,000 in fis­cal 2022, I am ask­ing for what pur­pose, it is list­ed here as a Cab­i­net ap­point­ed Com­mit­tee, is it that there is no Cab­i­net ap­point­ed com­mit­tee be­cause there is an al­lo­ca­tion. I am ask­ing for what pur­pose," Tan­coo said.

At this, Im­bert turned to the Speak­er of the House, Brigid An­nisette-George who was chair­ing the meet­ing and said that Tan­coo was chang­ing his ques­tion "every few sec­onds".

"It is in an­tic­i­pa­tion that there may be a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee un­der gen­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tion," he said.

"We ex­pect that there may be one in 2022," Im­bert said.

Im­bert al­so di­rect­ed the Op­po­si­tion MP's to stop ask­ing "long-wind­ed" ques­tions and to just "ask what it is for" and had to be pulled up by the chair, Brigid An­nisette-George and even then kept in­ter­rupt­ing her. Im­bert di­rect­ed that the five min­utes per ques­tion be changed.

The Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­son car­ried an over­time fig­ure of $44 mil­lion and when asked about whether adding more staff would help re­duce that fig­ure, Im­bert said the time it took to clear items, there would still be an over­time fig­ure.

"In many in­stances, con­tain­ers are sent to bond­ed ware­hous­es and oth­er places, the Cus­toms of­fi­cers have to at­tend to check these con­tain­ers af­ter hours so of course we will con­tin­ue to strive to re­duce the over­time pay­ments but we al­so want to strive to in­crease the ef­fi­cien­cy and speed at which the Cus­toms ser­vices its cus­tomers," he said.

Im­bert was al­so asked about the lack of the Gov­ern­ment's con­tri­bu­tion to group pen­sion and re­spond­ed qui­et­ly "be­cause it was not fi­nalised".

When asked by MP Cou­va North Ravi Rati­ram to re­peat what he said, Im­bert of­fered a terse "I an­swered".

"If this is go­ing to con­tin­ue for the whole af­ter­noon. I gave a per­fect­ly sol­id an­swer and they say they can't hear, I will have to shout," he said.

An­nisette-George weighed in, telling Im­bert he did sound "mut­ed" at times and had to be di­rect­ed by her to re­peat his pre­vi­ous an­swer.

"There is no pen­sion plan fi­nalised yet," he said.

When asked when it would be fi­nalised, Im­bert of­fered on­ly "it is in the bud­get state­ment".