Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has con­firmed that ne­go­ti­a­tions for a ten per cent salary in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants will be­gin in the up­com­ing fi­nan­cial year, while cau­tion­ing the pub­lic to “ta­per” ex­pec­ta­tions for the na­tion­al bud­get.

The an­nounce­ment marks the first time the Gov­ern­ment has pro­vid­ed a con­crete time­line for one of its ma­jor cam­paign promis­es—a pledge that helped the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) se­cure sup­port from the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) ahead of the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Speak­ing to the me­dia at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre last evening, Tan­coo said, “I ex­pect that the ten per cent ne­go­ti­a­tion that’s now be­ing ref­er­enced as the ten per cent ne­go­ti­a­tion will start in fis­cal 2026, and there will be some res­o­lu­tion in fis­cal 2026.

“I think both the Gov­ern­ment and the union are sim­i­lar­ly mind­ed in re­solv­ing those mat­ters in fis­cal 2026. So, there will be pro­vi­sion in the bud­get for those kinds of things.”

Asked if he an­tic­i­pates the ne­go­ti­a­tions con­clud­ing with­in the fis­cal year—Oc­to­ber 1, 2025, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2026—Tan­coo replied, “It is my ex­pec­ta­tion that there will be a con­clu­sion in fis­cal 2026.”

PSA Pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas not­ed that the out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions cov­er civ­il ser­vants’ salaries for the pe­ri­ods 2014–2016 and 2017–2019.

On the broad­er na­tion­al bud­get, Tan­coo tem­pered ex­pec­ta­tions, say­ing not every­one may be im­me­di­ate­ly sat­is­fied with the up­com­ing pro­pos­als.

“What I can say is the bud­get will have some an­swers for many of the ques­tions that we will have. And I think every­body will be not the hap­pi­est of hap­py but will be com­fort­able with the an­swers that they will get,” he said.

Tan­coo added, “A lot of us have great ex­pec­ta­tions, but a lot of those great ex­pec­ta­tions will man­i­fest over a five-year pe­ri­od.”

Ad­dress­ing calls from To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine for a fair share of the na­tion­al bud­get, Tan­coo said he met with Au­gus­tine and the Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance on Wednes­day.

“We had a very fruit­ful dis­cus­sion,” he said.

In last year’s bud­get, To­ba­go was al­lo­cat­ed $2.599 bil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing 4.35 per cent of the na­tion­al bud­get.

When asked about the bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion date, Tan­coo said on­ly that it would be “soon.” Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed it would be pre­sent­ed in ear­ly Oc­to­ber.