SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Brace for a hol­low 2021 bud­get.

The warn­ing came from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar two weeks ahead of the coun­try’s Oc­to­ber 5 fis­cal pack­age which will be de­liv­ered by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Per­sad- Bisses­sar was asked what is her ex­pec­ta­tion of the up­com­ing bud­get.

She said af­ter five years with­out a sin­gle eco­nom­ic achieve­ment to speak of “we can ex­pect the Gov­ern­ment to present yet an­oth­er hol­low bud­get de­void of ideas and dressed up with fan­cy slo­gans.”

At Thurs­day’s post Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Im­bert said prop­er­ty tax will be used to earn state rev­enues, as the Gov­ern­ment tries to keep the coun­try afloat dur­ing ma­jor fi­nan­cial fall­out from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the next fis­cal year “will un­doubt­ed­ly be dif­fi­cult,” stat­ing that what the coun­try needs is strong, lead­er­ship with a clear plan to im­prove our de­clin­ing econ­o­my and help gen­er­ate rev­enue for the fu­ture.

Re­gard­ing state­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last month that the pan­dem­ic has dev­as­tat­ed our ef­forts in the tourism mar­ket, cre­at­ing a $15 bil­lion hole which was like­ly to im­pact the up­com­ing bud­get con­sid­er­ably, Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked “where did this $15 bil­lion fig­ure come from.”

This hole was not caused by COVID, she said, but by their mis­man­age­ment and in­com­pe­tence.

“Their politi­cis­ing of the pan­dem­ic has cre­at­ed more prob­lems for the peo­ple of T&T by their re­fusal to ac­knowl­edge their own fail­ings. They ran an en­tire cam­paign say­ing we beat COVID-19 yet to­day we are sup­pos­ed­ly in a $15 bil­lion hole while cas­es con­tin­ue to rise.”

She said the Gov­ern­ment’s cop­ing mea­sure was to bor­row, draw­down from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund and sell state as­sets to friends and fi­nanciers.

“Their Roadmap to Re­cov­ery re­port is yet to show any promis­ing ini­tia­tives and they have tak­en us ten years back­wards with dis­as­trous poli­cies.”

She said cit­i­zens are left to grap­ple with ris­ing prices, soar­ing un­em­ploy­ment and di­min­ish­ing in­come with lit­tle hope for the fu­ture.