Gail Alexan­der

The $2.3 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal funds al­lo­cat­ed to sev­er­al min­istries, in­cludes $95 mil­lion for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry, which, among us­es, will be as­sist­ing cor­po­ra­tions with funds for scav­eng­ing ser­vices.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert yes­ter­day gave de­tails of the ar­eas to which the $2.3 bil­lion will be used when he de­liv­ered the re­port of Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) on the $2.3 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing for the 2024 Bud­get.

Funds went to 12 di­vi­sions, in­clud­ing 11 min­istries and the ser­vice com­mis­sion. The min­istries in­clud­ed five of the nine min­istries which got the top 2024 Bud­get al­lo­ca­tions.

Im­bert said the min­istry ex­am­ined min­istries’ re­quests for what was deemed to be “in­escapable ex­pen­di­ture sup­ple­men­ta­tions for the last six weeks.”

Bear­ing in mind the rev­enue sit­u­a­tion, he said the min­istry had re­duced the amount of the sup­ple­men­ta­tion to $2.3 bil­lion, though much more was re­quest­ed.

Among $95 mil­lion re­ceived by the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry, Im­bert said this in­cludes for cor­po­ra­tions’ scav­eng­ing ser­vices.

Port-of-Spain has been hit by a re­cent strike by cor­po­ra­tion work­ers who downed tools and stopped garbage pick­up this week and mounds of garbage have piled up in many ar­eas since last week­end.

He de­tailed the oth­er ar­eas in which oth­er min­istries will use their fund­ing.

No de­val­u­a­tion of TT dol­lar

In yes­ter­day’s de­bate, Im­bert al­so stressed that no de­val­u­a­tion of the TT dol­lar is ahead. He com­plained about an­nu­al “com­mands” from com­men­ta­tors and me­dia hous­es to de­val­ue the dol­lar.

Im­bert not­ed the IMF re­port’s Ar­ti­cle Eight, which is an agree­ment among coun­tries be­fore 1950 that they wouldn’t have a fixed ex­change rate. He not­ed that T&T has a man­aged ex­change rate.

“We have ab­solute­ly no in­ten­tion of de­valu­ing the dol­lar, there­fore the IMF has no op­tion, as it does with all the oth­er coun­tries that it ex­am­ines, to say that we’re not fol­low­ing the agree­ment that was made 70 years ago that no coun­try would have a fixed ex­change rate or have a peg on its ex­change rate—that’s all that hap­pens.

“So every year, the IMF mis­sion (vis­it­ing T&T) is du­ty-bound to re­port that T&T doesn’t have a freely float­ing dol­lar. That’s all.”

He added, “So for all those who are hoard­ing US dol­lars over­seas and fig­ure you can force this Gov­ern­ment to de­val­ue the dol­lar—think again. We’re not go­ing to do that be­cause it will cause hard­ship, pain and suf­fer­ing to the poor peo­ple in this coun­try who have to buy food and oth­er es­sen­tials.”

What $2.3B is be­ing used for

Ser­vice Com­mis­sion: $4,140,000 for le­gal costs for court mat­ters and to fa­cil­i­tate pay­ments of spe­cialised as­sess­ment ex­er­cis­es for se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cers, for ex­am­ple Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, DCP, etc.

TO­BA­GO HOUSE OF AS­SEM­BLY: $50M for costs as­so­ci­at­ed with re­me­di­a­tion/clean-up costs re­lat­ed to the Feb­ru­ary oil spill. Based on ac­tu­al in­voic­es for clean-up/re­me­di­a­tion ($33.8m), lease/rental of in­fra­struc­ture ($4.8m), ma­te­r­i­al sup­plies ($184,009), cater­ing ($327,000), ma­rine sup­port ser­vices/con­sul­tan­cy ($5.9m), se­cu­ri­ty ($196,000), con­tin­gency ($640,000).

OF­FICE OF AT­TOR­NEY GEN­ER­AL AND MIN­ISTRY OF LE­GAL Af­fairs: $124,300,000, in­clud­ing $120,000,000 for fees for lo­cal and for­eign at­tor­neys; soft­ware for the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry; rental for Caribbean Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force of­fice

ED­U­CA­TION: $144.2m – Pay­ments in­clud­ing aris­ing from the min­i­mum wage, MTS ($127m), gra­tu­ities, book grant ($20m), Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices ($12,700,000), Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Ltd ($47,000,000)

HEALTH: $495,286,000, in­clud­ing pay­ments to NIPDEC for drugs and oth­er re­lat­ed ma­te­ri­als and sup­plies – $202,583,300.

Al­so North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty – $40,002,500; East­ern Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty - $60,006,900; North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty – $121,126,000; South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty – $60,005,600.

Build-own-lease trans­fer arrange­ment for the new Health head of­fice, rental due on the old head of­fice, PA­HO, ac­com­mo­da­tion.

LABOUR: $130,538,600, in­clud­ing for salary ar­rears for OS­HA work­ers; OJT stipends.

PUB­LIC UTIL­I­TIES: $527m, with over $500m in op­er­a­tional ex­pen­di­ture for WASA – salaries, wages, over­time, NIS, trav­el­ling, loan pay­ments and de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter.

RUR­AL DE­VEL­OP­MENT AND LO­CAL GOV­ERN­MENT: Salaries for con­tract of­fi­cers ($10,755,500) and short-term con­tract­ed work­ers; ($5,572,000) in­creas­es in the min­i­mum wage, gra­tu­ities, scav­eng­ing ser­vices in the var­i­ous cor­po­ra­tions, CEPEP ($36,700,000).

EN­ER­GY: $570.9m, in­clud­ing par­tial pay­ment to­wards ar­rears for the fu­el sub­sidy, which will cost at least $1B or more in 2024

WORKS: $155m to clear­ing/de­silt­ing rivers, traf­fic lights pay­ments in­clud­ing to con­trac­tors, gra­tu­ity (traf­fic war­dens), loan pay­ment for $1.5b and pay­ment on $500m loans for road work on Point Fortin high­way

FOR­EIGN AF­FAIRS MIN­ISTRY: $4.9m for re­pairs to build­ings, ter­mi­nal ben­e­fits for staff in Lon­don, IT equip­ment up­grade and for prop­er­ties.

TOURISM: $21m for ar­rears for Car­ni­val 2024, NA­PA, SAPA re­pairs.