Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Two gov­ern­ment min­is­ters are deny­ing that the re­cent re­as­sign­ment of Cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ties de­layed or com­pli­cat­ed the an­nounce­ment of the 2026 Na­tion­al Bud­get date.

Yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo con­firmed that Bud­get Day will be Oc­to­ber 13, not­ing that while this re­mains with­in the le­gal time­frame, bud­gets have tra­di­tion­al­ly been pre­sent­ed in the last week of Sep­tem­ber or the first week of Oc­to­ber.

How­ev­er, Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath both told Guardian Me­dia the re­cent re­align­ment of min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios had no bear­ing on the Bud­get’s fi­nal­i­sa­tion or tim­ing.

Ho­sein, whose ex­pand­ed port­fo­lio now in­cludes re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Lands and Sur­veys, Land Man­age­ment, Squat­ter Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion, Sur­veys and Map­ping, Val­u­a­tion, the Land Set­tle­ment Agency, the Land Sur­vey Board, and the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, said the new struc­ture would not com­pli­cate fund­ing arrange­ments.

“All of these items com­ing un­der one min­istry now would have had al­lo­ca­tions or sub­mis­sions made to the Min­istry of Fi­nance for the prepa­ra­tion of Bud­get 2026,” Ho­sein ex­plained. “In the nor­mal ac­count­ing prac­tice, all of those heads will now fall un­der the Min­istry of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs.”

He fur­ther clar­i­fied that funds al­ready al­lo­cat­ed will sim­ply fol­low the re­aligned de­part­ments.

“The Bud­get will fol­low those par­tic­u­lar items un­der the min­istry, re­flect­ed in the Es­ti­mates of Ex­pen­di­ture, both Re­cur­rent and PSIP (Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme) projects,” Ho­sein said. “It’s re­al­ly just a mat­ter of re­al­lo­ca­tion through the ap­pro­pri­ate line items.”

Mean­while, Padarath dis­missed any sug­ges­tion that the ad­just­ments in­flu­enced the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the bud­get date.

“These changes have been tak­ing place over the last few weeks, if not months,” he said. “We were al­ready far ad­vanced in the bud­get process. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, bud­gets may come in the first week of Oc­to­ber, but we are not pi­geon­holed to that.”

Padarath al­so point­ed out that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent trip to the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York may have in­flu­enced sched­ul­ing but did not con­sti­tute a de­lay.

“There’s noth­ing in law that says we must present the Bud­get in the first week of Oc­to­ber,” he added. “Some peo­ple have be­come ac­cus­tomed to that tim­ing, but the Gov­ern­ment has un­til the end of the month to meet the con­sti­tu­tion­al dead­lines—and we will.”

Padarath’s port­fo­lio was al­so ex­pand­ed dur­ing the re­cent reshuf­fle. In ad­di­tion to his pub­lic util­i­ties re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, he now over­sees Pow­er Gen­er­a­tion, Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed (TGU), and Pow­er­gen. He al­so serves as a min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, which was among the min­istries most af­fect­ed by the re­align­ment.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter now has an ex­pand­ed re­mit, cov­er­ing Her­itage Build­ings, Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form, the Na­tion­al Trust, the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Lim­it­ed, Na­tion­al Li­brary Ser­vices, the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty, Home Im­prove­ment Grants Pol­i­cy, the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme, and the Gov­ern­ment-Aid­ed Self-Help Hous­ing Pro­gramme.

Both min­is­ters re­it­er­at­ed that Gov­ern­ment re­mains on sched­ule and that Bud­get 2026 will be de­liv­ered as promised on Mon­day.