Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly has told the Gov­ern­ment it is out of touch with re­al­i­ty, over what is seen as sev­er­al in­sen­si­tive com­ments from MPs and Cab­i­net mem­bers to­wards the pop­u­la­tion amidst pub­lic back­lash to mea­sures in the re­cent­ly read 2023 Bud­get.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the Bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, Ram­bal­ly ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the state­ments to bul­ly the pop­u­la­tion in­to sub­mis­sion.

“Your job as the Gov­ern­ment is to lis­ten to the voice of the peo­ple and if you can­not do that, get on your bike and ride out of of­fice now!” he said.

He said the Bud­get would in­crease pres­sure on the poor, vul­ner­a­ble and mid­dle class.

While cham­bers of com­merce had a main­ly favourable re­view of the Bud­get since its read­ing, Ram­bal­ly said these were not the en­ti­ties the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to look af­ter.

“The fact that the Gov­ern­ment’s friends in cer­tain or­gan­i­sa­tions have giv­en them the Ju­das kiss of ap­proval for the bud­get means ab­solute­ly noth­ing to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

“The econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go is not about the Cham­ber of Com­merce, you know. It is not about a spe­cial in­ter­est group. The econ­o­my of Trinidad and To­ba­go is the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The econ­o­my is the dou­bles men, the taxi dri­vers, the shop­keep­ers, the nurs­es, health­care work­ers. The econ­o­my is our de­fend­ers of jus­tice—po­lice­men, our women in so­ci­ety and our young pro­fes­sion­als. Those who are seek­ing jobs. That is the econ­o­my.”

Ram­bal­ly said the pub­lic up­roar over mea­sures such as the in­crease in fu­el prices is ev­i­dence that the pop­u­la­tion has “re­ject­ed this bud­get of be­tray­als and they are re­ject­ing this Gov­ern­ment of be­tray­ers.”—Rishard Khan