Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Fund­ing for the set­tle­ment of pub­lic ser­vants’ salary pay­ments is not in­clud­ed in the UNC Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 Bud­get, nor is there any in­creased al­lo­ca­tion in the Min­istry of the Peo­ple to cov­er the Jan­u­ary 1 hike in Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Scheme (NIS) con­tri­bu­tions.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo con­firmed this dur­ing yes­ter­day’s meet­ing of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC), where min­is­ters were ques­tioned by Op­po­si­tion MPs on line items in their min­istries’ bud­gets.

Tan­coo said if more mon­ey is need­ed to pay the high­er NIS con­tri­bu­tions, the Gov­ern­ment will re­turn to Par­lia­ment to seek ap­proval for ad­di­tion­al fund­ing.

He was sup­port­ing Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple Van­dana Mo­hit, who came un­der in­tense scruti­ny from PNM MPs, in­clud­ing for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, dur­ing ex­am­i­na­tion of her min­istry’s 2026 es­ti­mates.

The SFC, which fol­lows the pas­sage of the na­tion­al bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, al­lows the Op­po­si­tion to probe gov­ern­ment spend­ing across min­istries. To­tal ex­pen­di­ture for the 52 heads of ex­pen­di­ture stands at $50.4 bil­lion out of the $59.2 bil­lion na­tion­al bud­get.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from PNM MP Ka­reem Mar­celle about whether the es­ti­mates in­clude the ten per cent salary in­crease pro­posed by the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), Tan­coo said ne­go­ti­a­tions have not yet start­ed.

“Un­like the PNM be­fore, we can­not in­clude in ab­sen­tia some­thing that hasn’t hap­pened yet,” he said.

How­ev­er, PNM MP Hans Des Vi­gnes ar­gued that “in fi­nance, you bud­get for things to come”, cit­ing the ac­count­ing prin­ci­ple of con­ser­vatism.

Tan­coo replied, “There have been no ne­go­ti­a­tions start­ed, so the as­sump­tion of ten, twelve, ze­ro, or five per cent is ir­rel­e­vant. Your ver­sion of ac­count­ing might be dif­fer­ent, but as a gov­ern­ment, we have to wait un­til ne­go­ti­a­tions be­gin be­fore putting ar­bi­trary fig­ures.”

Im­bert then chal­lenged Tan­coo’s po­si­tion, point­ing out that the Min­istry of the Peo­ple was mak­ing for­ward-look­ing pro­vi­sions in oth­er ar­eas. “Why are you mak­ing pro­vi­sions in the min­istry con­trary to your own pol­i­cy with re­spect to the 10 per cent?” he asked.

When Tan­coo at­tempt­ed to re­spond, Im­bert in­ter­ject­ed that he want­ed to hear di­rect­ly from Min­is­ter Mo­hit—prompt­ing a brief ver­bal clash be­tween the two fi­nance min­is­ters.

Op­po­si­tion MP Bri­an Man­ning pressed for clar­i­ty on whether ne­go­ti­a­tions would con­clude be­fore the end of the fis­cal year, sug­gest­ing that with­out such pro­vi­sions, the Gov­ern­ment had “un­der-bud­get­ed”.

Tan­coo ac­cused Man­ning of “try­ing to cre­ate head­lines”, to which Man­ning re­tort­ed, “I’m anx­ious to hold this Gov­ern­ment to ac­count—that’s my job.”

Man­ning al­so queried the im­pact of the Jan­u­ary 1 in­crease in NIS con­tri­bu­tions, which he claimed amount­ed to a “45 per cent over­all” rise.

Tan­coo dis­missed this as “po­lit­i­cal mis­in­for­ma­tion”, in­sist­ing the al­lo­ca­tion was ad­e­quate for now and that fur­ther funds could be sought lat­er if re­quired.

“I’ve made it very clear al­ready: if there’s a short­fall—and I’m ad­vised that the min­is­ter is com­fort­able that this al­lo­ca­tion will meet her oblig­a­tions—we can re­turn to the House for ad­di­tion­al sup­port,” he said.

Tan­coo and Mo­hit ac­cused the PNM bench of ask­ing the same ques­tions re­peat­ed­ly “to get a head­line”. Man­ning coun­tered that the Op­po­si­tion’s right to ask ques­tions was not up to the Gov­ern­ment to de­cide.

It was al­so con­firmed that the Min­istry of the Peo­ple cur­rent­ly has 600 va­can­cies and is seek­ing ap­pli­cants through its re­cruit­ment dri­ve. Tan­coo said an Un­em­ploy­ment Fund ex­ists to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al em­ploy­ment sup­port if nec­es­sary.

A tense ex­change be­tween Im­bert and Mo­hit erupt­ed af­ter she said she would “at­tempt” to re­trieve cer­tain in­for­ma­tion. Im­bert ob­ject­ed, in­sist­ing all da­ta should al­ready be avail­able, and lat­er de­mand­ed she with­draw a com­ment im­ply­ing he had at­tacked min­istry staff.

SFC chair­man Jagdeo Singh in­ter­vened, cau­tion­ing both sides against rais­ing their voic­es. “You’re far too ex­pe­ri­enced, knowl­edge­able, and aged, if I might add, to raise your voice in that man­ner,” Singh told Im­bert.

Im­bert re­spond­ed that he need­ed to speak loud­ly “to rise above the Gov­ern­ment’s noise.” When he jok­ing­ly re­marked that he might have to do so again be­cause he was “aged”, Singh quipped that some­times “peo­ple ver­ti­cal­ly chal­lenged like you have to raise their voic­es to get at­ten­tion.”

Im­bert replied, “You think so?” Singh said it was a joke, to which Im­bert re­spond­ed, “That’s not fun­ny.”