PM: TT's economy not as bad as I expected

Despite the Government’s ongoing challenges in managing the effects of the covid19 pandemic, the Prime Minister has assured citizens that Trinidad and Tobago’s economy is not as bad as he had expected.

At a news conference on Friday at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Blenheim, Tobago, Dr Rowley said the pandemic’s impact on the economy got some attention during the three-day Cabinet retreat. He said Finance Minister Colm Imbert will address the issue more comprehensively in the upcoming budget.

“But, I must say, the documentation, the actual numbers, contrary to what was anticipated in some quarters and even in my own quarter, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we are a little better off than the conversation would have allowed you to take,” he told reporters.

“In fact, the Minister of Finance was seriously interrogated to make sure that the numbers that we are talking about are not as bad as it would have appeared. So that was one good thing I was pleasantly surprised about.

“You would have heard that there are certain voices, whenever they get the opportunity to be heard...they speak about, 'Everything collapse,' and, 'This collapse,' and, 'That collapse.' I could tell you now, that is far from the truth. The numbers don’t bear that out.”

Rowley could not say at this time which sectors are expected to receive cutbacks in the upcoming budget.

“I wouldn’t want to answer that now. The Minister of Finance would have benefited from the exercise we have this week and I would want to see what their drafts are first before I could answer that question.”

Saying the budget will be one “with a little bit of a difference,” Rowley’s said in order for the Government’s planning post covid19 to bear fruit, certain things must be incorporated into the document.

He said the Ministry of Digital Transformation, led by Hassel Bacchus, will play a crucial role in this regard.

“We don’t have an elastic amount of money. Some things may fall by the wayside or be reduced and the ministry that was centre stage in this retreat was the Ministry of Digital Transformation, because it is the Government’s approach that a lot of the problems that we are wanting to address in the short, medium and long term, can be attended to by us moving to change the way we do business, the way we keep records, the way we respond to the population. That is all about data collection, data manipulation and data use.”

Rowley said the Ministry of Social Development will be re-engineered to eliminate corruption in the distribution of social relief initiatives.

“We want to quickly re-engineer the Ministry of Social Development so that we can ensure that the help that the Government is providing gets to those people who qualify. We do not have extra resources for waste and for corruption and, therefore, digitising that ministry very quickly will help us to better manage what, in effect, is a major component of the national budget of $40-odd billion.

“Ten per cent of that budget is literally support programmes coming out of that ministry and, therefore, we need to know exactly who we are dealing with and ensure that the resources are targeted to those who qualify and those who expect it.”

Rowley also said the Government, through the Ministry of Finance, will provide some level of support to entrepreneurs, especially small and medium-sized businesses.

He said more details will be provided when Parliament resumes on September 10.