Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior po­lit­i­cal re­porter

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day de­liv­ered a bud­get pack­age with salary in­creas­es and oth­er sweet­en­ers for pub­lic ser­vants in an over­all $59.7 bil­lion pack­age.

A five per cent wage in­crease of­fer for pub­lic ser­vants, $2 min­i­mum wage hike for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers from No­vem­ber, VAT re­funds com­ing, tax and NIS amnesties—and three en­ti­ties short­list­ed for the Guaracara re­fin­ery—were in­clud­ed in a pack­age which some dubbed “an elec­tion bud­get.”

Loaded with op­ti­mism and pos­i­tives, the Bud­get will ap­ply to the pe­ri­od tak­ing T&T up to the end of the next fis­cal year end­ing Sep­tem­ber 2025—a pe­ri­od when gen­er­al elec­tion is due.

Im­bert gave a longer-than-usu­al pre­sen­ta­tion—five hours and 11 min­utes—dur­ing which he pos­i­tive­ly de­tailed the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s achieve­ments in all sec­tors over the term.

Im­bert added, “This 2025 Bud­get stands as a tes­ta­ment to our na­tion’s re­silience amid the for­mi­da­ble chal­lenges faced over the past nine years. We’ve come a long way since 2015, weath­ered many shocks, and proven that we are up to the task of gov­ern­ing this coun­try ef­fec­tive­ly and eq­ui­tably.

“Con­trary to ru­mour, our eco­nom­ic fu­ture is as­sured, and we sim­ply have to nav­i­gate a few chal­leng­ing years be­fore we reap the re­wards of the work be­ing done in both the oil and non-oil sec­tors.”

Not6ing the theme, “Stead­fast and Res­olute - Forg­ing Path­ways to Pros­per­i­ty,” he said, “This theme un­der­scores our com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing a di­ver­si­fied and re­silient econ­o­my that can with­stand ex­ter­nal shocks and cap­i­talise on emerg­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the glob­al mar­ket­place.”

Amid a back­drop of Op­po­si­tion pro­test­ers out­side the Red House, Im­bert’s $59.741 bil­lion bud­get was slight­ly more than the 2024 fig­ure of $59.209B.

The 2025 Bud­get was based on an oil price of US$77.80 and nat­ur­al gas price of US$3.59 per mmb­tu. Not­ing the volatil­i­ty of en­er­gy prices, he said the 2025 ba­sis was low­er than the 2024 Bud­get ba­sis of US$85 and US$5.

Pro­ject­ed rev­enue from the 2025 plan is $54.224B and the pro­ject­ed deficit is $5.517B.

The top al­lo­ca­tion went to Health at $7.57B. Ed­u­ca­tion was next with a $7.51B al­lo­ca­tion, in­clud­ing a spe­cial pur­pos­es al­lo­ca­tion for ur­gent school re­pairs.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly re­ceived $2.599B out of the $3.956B it had re­quest­ed.

Wage hike, union of­fer...

Among an­nounce­ments, Im­bert said it was recog­nised that an in­crease to the min­i­mum wage —while bring­ing com­fort to those at the bot­tom of the in­come scale — can al­so cre­ate hard­ship for small busi­ness­es.

“We’ve, there­fore, de­cid­ed to not make any fur­ther in­crease in the na­tion­al min­i­mum wage at this time, es­pe­cial­ly since the last in­crease, just last year, was of the or­der of 17 per cent, and SMEs are still grap­pling with the chal­lenge of man­ag­ing that in­crease,” he said.

“How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment, as the largest sin­gle em­ploy­er of peo­ple, is acute­ly aware of the dif­fi­cul­ties en­dured by per­sons earn­ing the min­i­mum wage.”

While Gov­ern­ment didn’t wish to place ad­di­tion­al stress on the small busi­ness sec­tor, while con­tin­u­ing to re­view the na­tion­al min­i­mum wage for an in­crease in sub­se­quent years, he said the min­i­mum wage earned by pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees would be in­creased from $20.50 an hour to $22.50 an hour, an in­crease of $2 per hour.

This in­crease ben­e­fits 5,100 work­ers at MTS, 6,900 work­ers in CEPEP and 6,200 in URP, among oth­er pub­lic sec­tor work­ers earn­ing min­i­mum wage.

Im­bert said it would give se­cu­ri­ty guards as much as $500 month­ly of ad­di­tion­al tax-free in­come and MTS jan­i­to­r­i­al staff will earn an ad­di­tion­al $340 month­ly. The in­crease will be ef­fec­tive from No­vem­ber 1st, 2024.

Im­bert al­so said Gov­ern­ment recog­nised that the four per cent of­fered to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers for 2014-19 wasn’t large but it was all Gov­ern­ment could have af­ford­ed then. It cost Gov­ern­ment over $1 bil­lion in back­pay and in­creased re­cur­rent an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture by hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars.

How­ev­er, he said the PSA and NUGFW’s re­fusal of that of­fer can­not be al­lowed to de­lay ne­go­ti­a­tions for the next bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od with oth­er pub­lic sec­tor trade unions, who rep­re­sent more work­ers.

“I have to­day in­struct­ed the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer to make the nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions to com­mence ne­go­ti­a­tions with those trade unions who ac­cept­ed the pre­vi­ous four per cent of­fer, for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2020 to De­cem­ber 2022. The Gov­ern­ment, even in the face of our chal­leng­ing fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances, has de­cid­ed to of­fer an in­crease of 5 per cent.”

That’s es­ti­mat­ed to cost an ad­di­tion­al $475 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, with back­pay up to the end of 2024 es­ti­mat­ed at over $1B, he said.

“It will be dif­fi­cult to find the mon­ey to make these pay­ments, but we think it’s on­ly fair and just,” he said, urg­ing the PSA and NUGFW to ac­cept the first four per cent.

Promis­es to hike grants

Im­bert al­so promised, “We’re de­ter­mined to ex­pand our ca­pac­i­ty to serve and to cap­i­talise on the so­cio-eco­nom­ic ad­vance­ments that lie ahead, en­sur­ing that when re-elect­ed, we’ll car­ry for­ward the mo­men­tum of progress. Gov­ern­ment cur­rent­ly spends over $5 bil­lion on so­cial grants every year and at this time, be­cause of our fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion, it’s not pos­si­ble to in­crease any grants. How­ev­er, with­in a few years, as the cross bor­der gas starts to flow, and rev­enues in­crease, we’ll im­prove the sit­u­a­tion for the most vul­ner­a­ble.”

Im­bert said Gov­ern­ment is aware that there is a sig­nif­i­cant sum of VAT re­funds out­stand­ing. He said the min­istry in­tends once again to is­sue in­ter­est-bear­ing VAT bonds in fis­cal 2025 in the sum of $3 bil­lion with a tar­get date for is­suance of Jan­u­ary 31, 2025.

“How­ev­er, on this oc­ca­sion, these bonds will be is­sued in a man­ner that does not cre­ate dif­fi­cul­ties or short­ages in the lo­cal for­eign ex­change mar­ket. Small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es who are owed re­funds will be paid in cash by De­cem­ber 31,” he not­ed.

He al­so promised that an on­line pay­ment so­lu­tion for prop­er­ty tax will be im­ple­ment­ed on/be­fore Oc­to­ber 31, al­low­ing bank trans­fers and card pay­ments.

Boat, planes, drones com­ing

Touch­ing on the trou­bling area of es­ca­lat­ing crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, Im­bert said, “We un­der­stand that be­hind every sta­tis­tic is a per­son, a fam­i­ly, a com­mu­ni­ty that de­serves to feel safe and se­cure.”

Ini­tia­tives an­nounced in­clud­ed the pur­chase of four Pa­trol Launch­es and eight high-speed In­ter­cep­tors for the Coast Guard to aid in bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty of life at sea; two search and res­cue/sur­veil­lance fixed-wing air­craft; and drones to as­sist sur­veil­lance and search and res­cue.

He said in 2025, Im­mi­gra­tion will al­so be­gin work on an Au­to­mat­ed Fin­ger­print Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Sys­tem (AFIS) to strength­en bor­der man­age­ment and im­prove na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. This will re­quire leg­is­la­tion for which Op­po­si­tion sup­port is need­ed. Im­mi­gra­tion will al­so em­bark on the con­ver­sion from ma­chine-read­able pass­ports to ePass­ports.

He said the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Op­er­a­tion Unit will im­me­di­ate­ly as­sume re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the elim­i­na­tion and dis­rup­tion of home/busi­ness place in­va­sion. The TTPS’ fleet will al­so be ex­pand­ed by 2,000 ve­hi­cles over the next three years. A fur­ther 150 one-piece rugged Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing de­vices with high­ly “cut-proof” straps will be ac­quired for the de­tec­tion of of­fend­ers.

3 for re­fin­ery, Cli­co shares di­vest­ment

The Bud­get in­clud­ed rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing projects, among them the sale of the Gov­ern­ment’s 49 per cent share­hold­ing in the Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (CLI­CO).

“It’s no longer con­sid­ered to be of strate­gic im­por­tance to the Gov­ern­ment and its di­vest­ment will earn sev­er­al bil­lion dol­lars in rev­enue to see us through the fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties of the next few years,” Im­bert said, adding that Gov­ern­ment is still owed over at least a fur­ther $13B from the bailout arrange­ment.

Im­bert said a third pro­cure­ment process to get bid­ders for the Petrotrin re­fin­ery ob­tained new po­ten­tial bid­ders and the par­ties who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pre­vi­ous two at­tempts. Sco­tia Cap­i­tal (USA) Inc. was en­gaged to man­age the process.

Three pro­pos­als were found by Sco­tia and the Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee to be wor­thy of fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion from the fol­low­ing en­ti­ties which Cab­i­net agreed to short­list: (1) CRO Con­sor­tium, a lo­cal­ly based con­sor­tium com­pris­ing three com­pa­nies, DR Com­modi­ties Lim­it­ed, Chemie-Tech and Ocala; (2) IN­CA En­er­gy LLC, a com­pa­ny based in the USA; and (3) Oan­do PLC, a Nige­ria- based com­pa­ny.

“A for­mal se­lec­tive Re­quest for Pro­pos­als process will now be ini­ti­at­ed to de­ter­mine the win­ner amongst these three com­pa­nies, with a view to restart­ing the re­fin­ery, if found fea­si­ble,” he said.

TTEC rate hike on hold

Im­bert said the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion’s de­ter­mi­na­tion for T&TEC rates is still be­ing con­sid­ered by Gov­ern­ment.

Im­bert pro­nounced “Mis­sion Ac­com­plished” on At­lantic LNG re­struc­tur­ing. He said the new rev­enue-shar­ing arrange­ments that arise from this and the new pric­ing for­mu­la for nat­ur­al gas will yield sub­stan­tial­ly en­hanced rev­enues for T&T per­ma­nent­ly.

He gave an op­ti­mistic ac­count of the do­mes­tic econ­o­my, de­tail­ing strong fi­nan­cial buffers, in­clud­ing US$6.1B in the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund and cit­ing three con­sec­u­tive years of growth. He guar­an­teed T&T wouldn’t go to the IMF “un­der this Gov­ern­ment.”

“Our econ­o­my is now grow­ing, and we sim­ply have to be care­ful and spend mon­ey wise­ly, and live with­in our means un­til 2027, when the cross-bor­der gas is ex­pect­ed to flow. Over the last nine years, we’ve demon­strat­ed we can man­age ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tions, and meet all our oblig­a­tions while pro­vid­ing sup­port to all cit­i­zens, and we’ll do it again.”

Im­bert laud­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s work with en­er­gy sec­tor chal­lenges and he slammed “naysay­ers.”

Im­bert’s ad­dress was punc­tu­at­ed by re­marks and mur­murs from the Op­po­si­tion. De­bate con­tin­ues at 10 am on Fri­day with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar’s re­ply.

FIS­CAL MEA­SURES & NEW PLANS

• Tax amnesty and amnesty on NIS pay­ments from Oc­to­ber 1 to De­cem­ber 31, 2024.

• Sale or lease of Mag­dale­na Grand Ho­tel

• Re­quest for pro­pos­als to de­vel­op a new 5-star in­ter­na­tion­al­ly brand­ed re­sort ho­tel on the Gov­ern­ment-owned Buc­coo Es­tate in To­ba­go. This project is ex­pect­ed to be on the scale of the pre­vi­ous­ly pro­posed San­dals Ho­tel.

• Re­quest for pro­pos­als to de­vel­op a yacht­ing ma­ri­na in Low­lands, To­ba­go, just south­west of the Pe­tit Trou La­goon, on lands cur­rent­ly be­ing ac­quired by

the Gov­ern­ment from the Plan­ta­tions Es­tate.

• $50m ini­tia­tive to up­lift at -risk com­mu­ni­ties fo­cus­ing on ex-con­victs, un­der­em­ployed and un­em­ployed per­sons un­der the thresh­old of a full cer­tifi­cate at the CSEC lev­el; Small/mi­cro-en­tre­pre­neurs; Crime vic­tims

• GATE pro­gramme un­der­go­ing sev­er­al en­hance­ments dur­ing the fourth quar­ter of 2024, in­clud­ing as­sess­ing ap­proved stu­dents’ abil­i­ty to con­tribute to tu­ition costs.

• $1,000 book grant con­tin­ues in 2025

• On­line Nu­mer­a­cy Pro­gramme for Adults

• Na­tion­al Dig­i­tal Lit­er­a­cy Project

• Dig­i­tal Lit­er­a­cy Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for Stu­dents

* So­lar-pow­ered sus­tain­abil­i­ty project in sec­ondary schools

* Agri­cul­ture In­tern­ship Pro­gramme

* CSEC Re­me­di­al Math­e­mat­ics Pro­gramme

* Re­me­di­al class­es con­tin­ue; ebook plat­form by next June.

* In­creased price paid for starter hous­es in the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme to $200,000.

* Ex­empt­ing all sport­ing equip­ment from tax­es and du­ty, with the ex­cep­tion of cloth­ing from 2025

* Cou­va Hos­pi­tal des­ig­nat­ed ear­ly-de­tec­tion cen­tre for dengue; PoS Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block open­ing March 2025.

* Trans­fer pric­ing law com­ing

* Ap­proval for CAL to buy more planes for North/South Amer­i­ca routes.

* Ma­yaro-Man­zanil­la high­way com­ple­tion in Jan­u­ary; 100 new road paving projects small con­trac­tors to be in­creased to 50.

* Wa­ter boost­er sta­tions, wells to im­prove sup­ply for thou­sands.

* In­creased de­posit in­sur­ance from to­day

* More land set­tle­ment sites, 3,000 street lights, youth/agri­cul­tur­al pro­grammes.