Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will lead off the UNC’s pre-bud­get con­sul­ta­tions to­mor­row.

The con­sul­ta­tions which are be­ing held ahead of the Bud­get 2025 pre­sen­ta­tion will take place through­out the coun­try and will con­tin­ue un­til Au­gust 20, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the UNC yes­ter­day.

Last Sun­day, Op­po­si­tion MP David Lee, who is al­so one of the UNC’s three deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, es­ti­mat­ed that the 2024-2025 Bud­get might be de­liv­ered in the last week of Sep­tem­ber or ear­ly Oc­to­ber.

It will be the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s last bud­get for the cur­rent term.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment by the UNC, the par­ty’s con­sul­ta­tions be­gin with to­mor­row’s event at Up­per Mal­abar Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Mal­abar Main Road, Ari­ma.

“The con­sul­ta­tions to be held in every con­stituen­cy in Trinidad will give the peo­ple and in­sti­tu­tion­al stake­hold­ers a chance to voice their con­cerns, ex­pe­ri­ences, and bud­get rec­om­men­da­tions,” the state­ment added.

Sug­ges­tions from cit­i­zens and stake­hold­ers at the UNC’s con­sul­ta­tions will be record­ed and com­piled to in­form Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s bud­get re­sponse, as well as, re­spons­es from all UNC MPs and sen­a­tors dur­ing the bud­get de­bate.

The state­ment added, “It is an an­nu­al demon­stra­tion of the UNC’s com­mit­ment to the or­di­nary peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go our de­sire to lis­ten and learn, and to be the voice of the voice­less. This process is the ex­act op­po­site of the op­pres­sive, top-down ap­proach of the PNM regime. Cit­i­zens of­ten have com­plained that no gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive has ever spo­ken to them about the bud­get and the econ­o­my in the past nine years.

“Their ap­proach has set our coun­try back 17 years eco­nom­i­cal­ly, to 2006 lev­els of re­al GDP. Every eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tor has wors­ened since the PNM took of­fice in 2015, and the vast ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple’s lives have be­come sig­nif­i­cant­ly worse over the past nine years of their mis­rule.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to be ac­com­pa­nied by Op­po­si­tion par­lia­men­tar­i­ans at the meet­ings. The con­sul­ta­tions will run al­most dai­ly from Ju­ly 17 to Au­gust 20, some­times with more than one per day.