A na­tion­al Bud­get is about so much more than the al­lo­ca­tion of funds, the in­tro­duc­tion of new rev­enue streams for the pub­lic purse or the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show where gov­ern­ments have en­joyed suc­cess with its spend­ing over the past year. A Bud­get al­so rep­re­sents the op­por­tu­ni­ty to al­ter be­hav­iours, by set­ting pa­ra­me­ters that will in­flu­ence the pop­u­lace to­wards choic­es that will cre­ate both im­me­di­ate and long-term ben­e­fits.

It can be the tax breaks giv­en to in­dus­tries such as re­cy­cling and re­new­able en­er­gy, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in­creas­ing tax­es on fos­sil fu­els, to nudge a coun­try to­wards a green­er—and very nec­es­sary —fu­ture. En­twined in every mas­sive Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, should be the means to en­sure prop­er in­vest­ment in not on­ly the in­fra­struc­ture of a na­tion, but al­so its peo­ple. Hu­man in­vest­ment.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the ‘Pig­tail Bud­get 2022’ falls short on this re­quire­ment. It is a con­tin­u­ance of the ide­ol­o­gy of throw­ing mon­ey at a prob­lem in­stead of tak­ing de­ci­sions with the po­ten­tial for far reach­ing ef­fect, to help fix the prob­lem at its source.

The cur­rent Bud­get boasts the two largest al­lo­ca­tions for Ed­u­ca­tion and Health, which is un­der­stand­able giv­en the need to con­tin­u­al­ly in­vest in our school sys­tem and to al­le­vi­ate the coro­n­avirus stress­es en­dured by the med­ical sec­tor. But when the Bud­get al­so boasts of VAT ex­emp­tions for cer­tain food items whose in­ges­tion will in­crease the fre­quen­cy of vis­its to the same med­ical sec­tor, it begs the ques­tion as to why a gov­ern­ment would give the sec­ond largest chunk of fund­ing to a sec­tor, then place it un­der in­creased strain by en­cour­ag­ing poor choic­es in di­et? It is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive spend.

This VAT ex­emp­tion choice hints at a lev­el of think­ing that is not all-en­com­pass­ing; one choice should ben­e­fit the oth­er as part of an over­all plan to in­crease the well­be­ing of cit­i­zens, in­stead of in­creas­ing the means to med­ical com­plaints. Juice, ketchup, processed food such as canned meat and sausages? When there are fruit and veg­eta­bles, beans and grains, all putting up their hands ‘pick me,’ wait­ing to be made ex­empt? One won­ders if pre-Bud­get con­sul­ta­tion with the Min­istry of Health did not throw up these fac­tors and ring Mr. Deyals­ingh’s alarm bells, be­cause sure­ly there is a long-term plan —this be­ing the 21st cen­tu­ry—to in­crease the health of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, rather than sim­ply ap­pease the pop­u­la­tion with a de­li­cious ease up. Map­ping out the fu­ture with health and well­ness tar­gets would in­cor­po­rate ex­emp­tions on healthy food, that ex­ist in abun­dance re­gion­al­ly and that can be en­cour­aged to not on­ly be eat­en but grown lo­cal­ly as well. These are the types of pos­i­tive be­hav­iours a 2022 Bud­get should seek to en­cour­age, to gen­er­ate pos­i­tive out­comes and to cre­ate or in­vig­o­rate in­dus­tries that can con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly across the en­tire spec­trum of a so­ci­ety.

If the glob­al sta­tis­tics of 2019 are cor­rect, T&T is al­most at a 19% obe­si­ty rate; that is near­ly a quar­ter of our adult pop­u­la­tion that are plac­ing un­nec­es­sary pres­sure on their or­gans, limbs, ar­ter­ies, as well as a health­care sys­tem that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance recog­nised as hav­ing had cracks ex­posed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Glob­al­ly we share the obe­si­ty is­sue with oth­er na­tions, while al­so shar­ing pro­longed lock­down pe­ri­ods where lit­tle or no ex­er­cise was pos­si­ble, with in­stances of bad eat­ing habits with­in house­holds. As we try to re­open sec­tors and learn to live with the ex­is­tence of COVID-19, this should be a pe­ri­od of in­spir­ing bet­ter and health­i­er lifestyles.

Be­yond the obe­si­ty is­sue, T&T is try­ing to cope with di­a­betes, can­cer, stroke, and a myr­i­ad of oth­er med­ical is­sues, many of which can be re­duced through prop­er di­ets mar­ried to a ded­i­cat­ed push to ed­u­cate about healthy eat­ing. If such a cam­paign could be car­ried out in con­junc­tion with the VAT ex­emp­tion of the same goods that ap­pear in the cam­paign, then the be­hav­iour­al change will oc­cur. It is baf­fling to con­tin­u­al­ly speak of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion year af­ter year while ig­nor­ing the trans­for­ma­tion oc­cur­ring to our cit­i­zen­ry’s bod­ies. Un­like the much sought-af­ter dig­i­tal haven, T&T’s eat­ing habits are not vir­tu­al, they are re­al, and they have dead­ly con­se­quences.

Com­bat­ing the on­slaught of sug­ar, sat­u­rat­ed fats, ar­ti­fi­cial colour­ing and all their un­healthy cousins that bom­bard the glob­al pop­u­la­tion with en­tic­ing ad­ver­tis­ing or tan­ta­lis­ing taste, is tak­en se­ri­ous­ly by na­tions that recog­nise the af­fect up­on the wider so­ci­ety. Pro­duc­tion and work rates are af­fect­ed, in­sur­ance, both na­tion­al and pri­vate, is af­fect­ed. Hos­pi­tal bed­space is af­fect­ed. Mor­tal­i­ty rates are af­fect­ed. We are blessed to have some of the best tast­ing dish­es in (pun most def­i­nite­ly in­tend­ed) sweet T&T but just like the at­tempt to bal­ance the Bud­get books, we must bal­ance de­li­cious­ness with health­i­ness.

A Bud­get that takes a ‘let them cake’ at­ti­tude is the an­tithe­sis of this re­quire­ment and bor­ders dan­ger­ous­ly on dis­dain for the well­ness of the peo­ple. Per­haps the thought process is so fo­cused on pro­vid­ing breaks in an area that is tru­ly in­grained in our psy­che, food, that hu­man well­be­ing is not even on the radar, but this is where the Min­istry of Health’s own ob­jec­tives should in­ter­vene.

By all means have VAT ex­emp­tions on food items as part of the pol­i­cy to of­fer eco­nom­ic re­lief, but for the sake of the na­tion’s health, di­rect it at the cor­rect food items as ev­i­dence of prop­er con­cern for the pop­u­la­tion.