The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has re­ject­ed the 2026 Bud­get, de­scrib­ing it as a “be­tray­al of the peo­ple’s trust” and a con­tin­u­a­tion of what it called the Gov­ern­ment’s “cam­paign of de­cep­tion”.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued from Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day, a day af­ter the Bud­get was passed, the par­ty said the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion (Fi­nan­cial Year 2026) Bill, 2025, was not a “peo­ple’s bud­get” as claimed by the Gov­ern­ment, but a “tax-and-suf­fer bud­get” that pun­ish­es the poor, squeezes the mid­dle class, bur­dens small busi­ness­es, and pro­tects the wealthy and po­lit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the Op­po­si­tion, the Bud­get is “built on false promis­es, in­flat­ed rev­enues and de­lib­er­ate un­der-bud­get­ing”.

The PNM cit­ed 15 rea­sons for vot­ing against the Bill, in­clud­ing what it de­scribed as a se­ries of bro­ken promis­es and fi­nan­cial mis­man­age­ment.

Among the mea­sures crit­i­cised were a new land­lord tax, which the Op­po­si­tion said would in­crease rental costs for or­di­nary cit­i­zens, and an elec­tric­i­ty rate in­crease, which it ar­gued would raise prices for man­u­fac­tur­ers, ser­vice providers, and con­sumers. It al­so con­demned the 45 per cent rise in Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions over two years, say­ing it would “re­duce dis­pos­able in­come and raise the cost of do­ing busi­ness”.

The Op­po­si­tion fur­ther point­ed to the re­moval of the school sup­plies and book grants, cuts to the On-the-Job Train­ing (OJT) pro­gramme, and the lack of fund­ing for the 20,000 hous­ing units promised by the Gov­ern­ment.

The PNM al­so ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of mis­lead­ing the pub­lic over its Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve, call­ing it a “pub­lic­i­ty stunt” that mere­ly re-ad­ver­tised ex­ist­ing po­si­tions with­out cre­at­ing new jobs.

Oth­er is­sues raised in­clud­ed the al­leged un­der-bud­get­ing of min­istries, over-in­flat­ed oil and gas rev­enue pro­jec­tions, and the ab­sence of fund­ing for a promised ten per cent salary in­crease for pub­lic of­fi­cers.

The state­ment added that the Bud­get con­tained “no cred­i­ble plan for eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion” and no so­lu­tion to the on­go­ing for­eign ex­change short­age, which it said con­tin­ues to “crip­ple cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es”.

“This Bud­get rep­re­sents yet an­oth­er false promise made to the pop­u­la­tion,” the re­lease stat­ed.