Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment, which has “plunged T&T in­to dark­ness” with the new elec­tric­i­ty rate in­creas­es, must roll back the in­creas­es, since peo­ple can­not af­ford to pay new rates, says Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Sen­a­tor Wade Mark.

“We may have to take to the streets to roll back the in­creas­es if the Gov­ern­ment doesn’t with­draw it!” Mark added in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day dur­ing de­bate on the 2024 Bud­get.

Cit­ing neg­a­tive con­di­tions af­fect­ing the pub­lic and im­pend­ing prop­er­ty tax, Mark added, “It’s on­ly ham­mer blows for the pub­lic... I want to warn this Gov­ern­ment, they’re play­ing with fire! They’re lay­ing the seeds for so­cial un­rest in T&T. If this thing con­tin­ues, peo­ple are go­ing to ri­ot in T&T if this Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues on the course that it is on!”

Mark, who dis­missed the Bud­get as four hours of “ole talk”, said it had on­ly added fu­el to an al­ready rag­ing fire. “Crumbs falling from the mas­ter’s ta­ble will not build ca­pac­i­ty, nor gen­er­ate growth, nor pro­mote di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. This Bud­get is ab­solute­ly ir­rel­e­vant and com­plete­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the mass­es’ suf­fer­ing ...” Mark said.

“Af­ter eight years with an ac­cu­mu­lat­ed ex­pen­di­ture of ap­prox­i­mate­ly half a tril­lion dol­lars, or­di­nary cit­i­zens, the vul­ner­a­ble, the mid­dle-class and oth­ers are still with­out de­cent work, reg­u­lar pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply; prop­er health­care and san­i­ta­tion and there’s an ir­rel­e­vant ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem with thou­sands of youths falling through the cracks.”

Say­ing peo­ple’s stan­dard of liv­ing and pur­chas­ing pow­er have col­lapsed, Mark added that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had spo­ken for 45 min­utes ear­li­er and not men­tioned any­thing about the 15 to 64 per cent in­crease in elec­tric­i­ty rates “for poor peo­ple and house­holds” an­nounced on Thurs­day.

“Peo­ple are reel­ing from the sit­u­a­tion in T&T and on the heels of this, we have Gov­ern­ment in­tro­duc­ing what can on­ly be de­scribed as dra­con­ian mea­sures to fur­ther pau­perise the mid­dle and work­ing class­es and work­ing poor!” Mark added.

“Not once did he talk about how the in­creas­es would im­pact neg­a­tive­ly on com­mer­cial busi­ness, on in­dus­try, or that that’s go­ing to con­tract ... where is the eco­nom­ic growth go­ing to come from? Is on­ly ham­mer blows for the poor, mid­dle and work­ing class, youths and farm­ers, while (PNM) friends and fi­nanciers live in lux­u­ry!”

Mark said the Op­po­si­tion Leader had warned that as soon as Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions were over, “the PNM and the IMF” would in­crease elec­tric­i­ty rates.

“And so said, so done. Now, we’re called up­on to pay huge in­creas­es in elec­tric­i­ty rates Why? Look we just read to­day: $55 mil­lion paid in rent—some fi­nancier of the PNM gone with $55 mil­lion —but prop­er­ty tax for the poor, $3 min­i­mum wage in­crease for the poor, four per cent in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants.”

He claimed the Moody’s re­port showed how the “Gov­ern­ment and IMF con­spired to im­pose the new elec­tric­i­ty rates”.

“This wasn’t a Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion de­ci­sion, this was an IMF-PNM de­ci­sion!” he said.

“Do you know the ef­fects on small/medi­um busi­ness­es? Do you know dis­pos­able in­come will de­cline? Peo­ple wouldn’t be able to buy things—that’ll im­pact on busi­ness! How can a Gov­ern­ment sit idly by and al­low this pres­sure to be placed on peo­ple?”

Not­ing pub­lic ser­vants got “crumbs” af­ter eight years with­out an in­crease and with prop­er­ty tax now loom­ing, Mark added, “How are they to sur­vive when you come now to in­crease elec­tric­i­ty rates? You raised fu­el prices six times and the peo­ple didn’t ri­ot. But this is the kind of pun­ish­ment the poor peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence un­der this Gov­ern­ment!”

De­mand­ing elec­tions Mark added, “The peo­ple can­not take this pres­sure any more!”

Don’t touch peo­ple's NIS $3,000 pay­ment

UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark al­so called on Gov­ern­ment not to in­ter­fere with the $3,000 NIS pen­sion paid at age 60.

“The re­al is­sue fac­ing NIS pen­sion­ers is not that of in­creas­ing the re­tire­ment age from 60 years to 65 years. Not at all! This is al­ready en­trenched in the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Act. Re­tir­ing at 65 is al­ready the law,” he said.

“What is the is­sue, is the board of di­rec­tors’ ap­proval and the Gov­ern­ment and In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund en­dorse­ment and vir­tu­al stamp of ap­proval to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly re­duce the NIS min­i­mum pen­sion for re­tir­ing con­trib­u­tors be­tween the ages of 60 to 64.

“Ac­cord­ing to the NIBTT’s An­nu­al Re­port 2021-2022, a num­ber of dra­con­ian mea­sures were pro­posed, in­clud­ing the in­crease in the re­tire­ment age to 65 and a re­duced pen­sion for those re­tir­ing be­tween the ages of 60 to 64,” he said, claim­ing Gov­ern­ment adopt­ed the re­port.

“The Gov­ern­ment and the IMF firm­ly be­lieve that this min­i­mum cur­rent­ly en­joyed by re­tirees’ pen­sion is too gen­er­ous and should be frozen at 80 per cent of the min­i­mum wage. The stark re­al­i­ty is that this Row­ley-led Gov­ern­ment, with their strings be­ing pulled by their friends at the IMF, be­lieves NIS pen­sion is too gen­er­ous and must there­fore be re­duced to 80 per cent of the min­i­mum wage,” he claimed.

Mark claimed work­ers who re­tired at var­i­ous lev­els af­ter 60 would get re­duced pen­sion and no re­duc­tion if re­tir­ing at 65.

“But don’t touch the NIS pay­ment of $3,000,” he warned.