Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

Re­port­ing from UN­GA in New York

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed Stan­dard & Poor’s re­vi­sion of the coun­try’s out­look from sta­ble to neg­a­tive as an in­her­i­tance from the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

How­ev­er, she be­lieves Trinidad and To­ba­go can im­prove its fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion soon.

S&P, in its rat­ing on Thurs­day, said, “The neg­a­tive out­look re­flects our view that there is at least a one-in-three chance we could low­er the rat­ings over the next six to 24 months.”

S&P added in its down­side sce­nario that that could take place “if the Gov­ern­ment fails to take time­ly cor­rec­tive steps to strength­en the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of pub­lic fi­nances, en­sure long-term bal­anced eco­nom­ic growth, and main­tain the coun­try’s strong ex­ter­nal pro­file.”

Asked for her com­ment on the lat­est rat­ing yes­ter­day as she left the Unit­ed Na­tions Head­quar­ters in New York, the PM said, “My thoughts are that is what we have in­her­it­ed. We have put our poli­cies and pro­grammes in place to lift us out from that zone that they put us in­to, in­to that debt cri­sis that we have spo­ken of.”

But the Prime Min­is­ter said there is some good news com­ing out of the neg­a­tive slide.

“We have changed from sta­ble to neg­a­tive, but the rat­ing re­mains the same, which is a good sign. It gives us time to step for­ward and push the re­form poli­cies as we go for­ward,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained.

And as the Gov­ern­ment’s first bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion looms, the PM was asked when it would be de­liv­ered.

“Bud­get Day will be soon,” she said.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo had pre­vi­ous­ly told Guardian Me­dia that fol­low­ing his bud­get read­ing, not every­one will be the “hap­pi­est of the hap­py”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked yes­ter­day what that means to the pop­u­la­tion.

“Well, there are al­ways some peo­ple who are not hap­py in this world, you know. Think about it. The Op­po­si­tion is not hap­py. They will nev­er be hap­py. So, we al­ways have peo­ple who are hap­py and those who are not hap­py. I am not afraid of hap­py and un­hap­pi­ness. I think we re­main com­mit­ted, we re­main ded­i­cat­ed to im­prov­ing the lives of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”