If Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert was sur­pris­ing­ly co-op­er­a­tive in re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion queries at yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­am­i­na­tion of Bud­get 2024 doc­u­ments, Bud­get de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives had al­ready seen heavy PNM and UNC spar­ring—and Im­bert had his full at­tack say there on Thurs­day.

The po­lit­i­cal joust­ing of de­bate saw Min­is­ters pack­ing in­to 55 min­utes, replies to lin­ger­ing unan­swered ques­tions, port­fo­lio ac­count­ing, pro­jec­tions and “mark bust­ing”. The lat­ter among Op­po­si­tion pre­sen­ta­tions al­so.

Both sides saw the need to as­sist their re­spec­tive leader’s stocks. PNM prais­ing the cap­tain and thank­ing him for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve. UNC su­perla­tives on their leader’s Bud­get re­ply.

Al­so ev­i­dent was the un­der­cur­rent of what this Bud­get may have been about, ev­i­denced by chest thump­ing pre­dic­tions for gen­er­al elec­tion. If Min­is­ters de­nied it was an elec­tion Bud­get, polls were in mind. Not just in the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s calls for it or the Prime Min­is­ter’s ac­knowl­edg­ing it’s due. Deputy lead­ers did the rest.

PNM deputy Ro­han Sinanan on Wednes­day said: “This Gov­ern­ment is on a roll to three terms!…af­ter 2025, Moru­ga will be on (PNM Gov­ern­ment) side.”

UNC deputy Roodal Mooni­lal re­butted, “You’re an op­po­si­tion in wait­ing, you in the de­par­ture lounge—we want to check your lug­gage! … 22 months left. I don’t know what they’ll be do­ing, half of you will be un­em­ploy­able, the oth­er half un­train­able!”

Min­is­ters’ de­scrip­tion of the Bud­get as “in­spir­ing hope in peo­ple” would in­deed be their hope with elec­tion ahead and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s ac­knowl­edge­ment that PNM would work dai­ly un­til then, fur­ther signs of aware­ness of their po­si­tion. In­deed, Gov­ern­ment cov­ered all op­po­nent bases—as far as Ma­yaro, slam­ming re­marks by UNC’s Rush­ton Paray, who they tipped as next UNC leader.

Be­yond Bud­get “in­cen­tives”, elec­tion pre­pared­ness in­cludes new probes tar­get­ing Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship/UNC peo­ple—al­leged 2012 Mas­ter­cards and sim­i­lar oth­ers in 2014/15; al­leged HDC “ghost hous­es” and “miss­ing mon­ey” in 2013.

Checks re­vealed in­for­ma­tion on the cards arose ear­li­er this year, af­ter the sus­pen­sion of a se­nior So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry of­fi­cial. Ques­tion­ing is ex­pect­ed to in­clude PP cab­i­net mem­bers and past pub­lic ser­vants. On Wednes­day, sev­er­al ex-PP Gov­ern­ment mem­bers said they were un­aware of the card pro­gramme, heard noth­ing in their Fi­nance meet­ings of the de­tails Gov­ern­ment re­vealed—or re­ferred queries to 2012 Min­istry of the Peo­ple (MOTP) head Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh.

Ra­mad­hars­ingh briefly said, “It’s base­less stale dat­ed in­for­ma­tion. The Ho­n­ourable So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter seems to ‘know’ more about things ‘years ago’—rather, what didn’t hap­pen—than who needs food cards.”

Re­spons­es were nil from ex-Min­is­ter in MOTP Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who held the MOTP af­ter fir­ing Ra­mad­hars­ingh in March 2014. PP of­fi­cials said she wasn’t in­volved in MOTP ad­min­is­tra­tion. No com­ment from MOTP min­is­ter (2015) Chris­tine Ho­sein ei­ther. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds’ de­tailed state­ment on T&T’s crime chal­lenges and ac­tion was tes­ta­ment to Gov­ern­ment’s em­bat­tled po­si­tion; his apol­o­gy, fur­ther con­fir­ma­tion of Gov­ern­ment’s re­set-out­reach bid to turn a page with the pub­lic. Whether it ac­tu­al­ly im­pact­ed (any of) the ma­jor­i­ty Hinds mes­saged or the mi­nor­i­ty he warned, the apol­o­gy nul­li­fied Hinds’ Feb­ru­ary 2022 com­ment that his du­ty wasn’t to en­sure peo­ple feel safe.

How much apol­o­gy was aid­ed by Wednes­day’s weapons cache dis­cov­ery is de­bat­able. Af­ter the depth of T&T’s sit­u­a­tion, se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies—get­ting a wealth of as­sets—must step up over­all for the pub­lic to be con­vinced on this is­sue, which Row­ley’s flagged as T&T’s biggest prob­lem. In­deed, T&T’s gone be­yond “trans­ship­ment point” de­scrip­tion to be­ing linked with “nar­co-traf­fick­ing.”

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi’s back­up of Hinds with “spin” com­plaint on news­pa­pers’ crime cov­er­age was shot down by Al-Rawi’s dis­re­gard of the fact that crime dom­i­nates news due to his Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to get a grip on it.

Hinds’ and Row­ley’s state­ments gave lit­tle hope re­gard­ing some of the UNC’s crime reme­dies for the up­com­ing an­ti-crime talks. Since Row­ley cor­rect­ly in­di­cat­ed in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions for the times are need­ed, wider in­put may al­so be need­ed. If both sides even­tu­al­ly find so­lu­tions, Bud­get de­bate bat­tling would have been worth it. If not, the bick­er­ing—and oth­er dire ef­fects—will con­tin­ue with pro­vi­sion of noth­ing for the pub­lic be­yond vex val­ue.