Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar's 2023/2024 National Budget speech

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar kicked off debate on the 2023/2024 National Budget, with her response to Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s speech, in the House of Representatives on Friday. The following is the start of her speech.

INTRODUCTION: THE UNC IS THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE.

• Thank you, Madam Speaker, and members of this Honourable House.

• We undertake pre-budget consultations every year following the founding principles and tenets of our UNC party to be the true voice of the people and faithfully represent all their interests and needs in this Parliament, for they have put us here.

• Indeed, as has always been my mantra: No citizen will ever be left behind by the UNC. Through us, they will always have a voice.

• So, thanks to the citizens and representatives from all the NGOs, Labour Unions, business organizations, and other groups who attended the many national Pre-Budget consultations and stakeholder meetings that the UNC held across the length and breadth of the land. Thanks also to the NGOs who sent their written submissions to us.

• Thanks also to all our MPs, Senators, Councillors, Aldermen, and staff of the Constituency and Opposition offices. And, of course, I express my ongoing gratitude to the great constituents of Siparia who have elected me to serve as their Member of Parliament in this auspicious Chamber since 1995. Budget 2024 ignores the realities facing our citizens completely.

• At our budget consultations, the main issues raised were, inter alia, crime, water, high cost of living, joblessness, and infrastructure.

• As has happened before, budget 2024 contains some new promises by this Government, which has not even kept the promises of yesteryear.

• Instead of addressing the promises made over the last 8 years, the Minister ignores those commitments, re-promises them and makes new ones.

• What is most concerning is that this budget for 2024 ignores the realities facing our citizens completely? The brutal, violent crime crisis was mainly ignored.

• This Government fails to understand that there can be no prosperity without safety and security.

• This budget is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because even as I speak today, even as we are here, comfortably ensconced in this chamber talking highfalutin talk about the economy, some innocent citizens will be robbed and murdered.

• There is a war on the outside. Criminals are at war with innocent citizens whom the Government have left the citizens to fend for themselves.

THERE CAN BE NO PROSPERITY WITHOUT SAFETY!

And our people are not safe. Only yesterday the TTPS said they solve 13 out of every 100 murders! This means that 87 per cent of the murderers are never caught.

• The Government has chosen to bury its head in the sand. While they boast about how to prosper, all I see is how people suffer.

• The Government is no longer in charge – they have ceded control to the criminals. Criminal enterprise is flourishing and prospering under this administration. How can you say prosper and enjoy when the Government’s mantra is suffer and destroy?

Fake elites and grovelling oligarchy have captured this Government.

• For the past eight years, this Government has done everything to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. All of their policies have been to the disadvantage of the working man.

• They have destroyed the foreign used car industry, benefiting the working man.

• They provided forex to their financiers while starving the SMEs and regular citizens into bankruptcy.

• They passed laws to force citizens to cede control of their money to the banks, who then extort high fees in return.

• They put VAT on 7000 food items that were VAT-free under my Government while concentrating our nation’s food and medicine supply into the hands of their financiers through the biased allocation of forex.

• They have refused to raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour or above to comfort the working class. Shamefully, the minor increase in this budget is being celebrated by some businesses who seem relieved that they would not be required by law to pay their workers a livable wage. Security officers must guard the wealth of the rich while simultaneously being unable to feed themselves and their families.

• Their policies are always meant to benefit the fake elites, while in every budget, they throw a pittance towards the working man, which year upon year turns out to be a series of painful broken promises.

• Free access to public broadband wireless networks in all areas has been repeated 5 times: 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023.

• Pension Reform has been repeated 4 times: 2016, 2020, 2022,2023.

• Subsidising mortgage loans at low interest rates repeated 3 times: 2016, 2018, 2021.

• Reintroduction of the Rent-to-Own programme to assist low-income households repeated 3 times: 2016, 2017, 2018.

• All these broken promises to the working man after 8 years of the most expensive misgovernance this country has ever seen.

• It has cost the taxpayers 420 billion dollars since they have taken office and will cost a further 59.2 billion dollars over the next 12 months. Almost half a trillion dollars have been spent, yet they have no achievements to benefit the honest working people.

The fake elite funded by narco money has also embedded into parts of the economy

• The rage people feel is because everyone knows this Government has been captured by the fake elites and grovelling oligarchy. They are prisoners of the fake elite and not protectors of the people.

• Due to this Government’s inaction, some members of the fake elite funded by narco money have embedded themselves into parts of the economy, thus fuelling crime. A large portion of our economy, mainly the underground economy, is financed by drug money.

• Our economy has become awash with drug money, fuelling violent crime. Only the ignorant refuse to see it. This narco-funded crime is an inflictor of great pain.

CRIME

Four beautiful children, tucked in their beds at midnight, and zipped in body-bags before sun-up.

• Anisa Mohammed said this to reporters when her four precious and most beautiful children were gunned down in their sleep. ‘I never studied hair or shoes or nails because as we get money, it

was groceries.’

• The four Peterkin children. Innocent children. Three were minors, and one was nineteen. You have seen their photos in the media.

Children too beautiful for words. Now, all Anisa’s money has been used to bury her four precious and most beautiful children.

• Four beautiful children were tucked in their beds at midnight and zipped in body bags before sunrise.

Many citizens were inconsolable at the sight. We all grieved, from afar, with this family. Pain completely ignored by this captured Government and the grovelling oligarchy

• Pain happens to humans. The family doesn’t know me, but I hurt along with them. Many people were raging mad; they could hardly contain themselves, but there was silence from the ‘eat a food’ oligarchy to which this Government panders.

• Not a word about the murders of these poor children by the wannabe elites who grovel for contracts, state briefs, rents, and national awards while simultaneously pontificating to the real people with fake lectures on propriety.

Kept awake by thick and dense pain

• A whole nation is being kept awake, not by noise but by thick and dense pain.

• A whole village in Guanapo can’t work. Not for lack of motivation but because there is burning pain every time they move. Many can’t eat. Their bellies are bloated with pain and grief. Pain is stabbing, and stabbing, and stabbing.

• And as if the pain of their children’s mass murder was not enough for the parents of Faith, Arianna, Shane, and Tiffany, there was the cruelty of disrespect for their bodies.

• They were left to decompose. Shawn Peterkin, the children’s father, said, ‘When they buss open the body bag with the children in it – if you see the children. They actually getting blue. They rottening. They smelling stink... They stink up the whole building. They come and slaughter my children, now they leave them to rotten.’ We must remove the pain of the stench of murder!

The stench of murder

• Do any of you know the stench of murder? While studying and working in Jamaica, I discovered the horrible smell of murder.

• I had a little Volkswagen bug and was driving along when I encountered a young man who was shot and lying in the street.

• I stopped and, with people’s help, we dragged him bloody into my car.

• I dropped him off at the hospital and returned home in shock and fear. I scrubbed that car all evening. The suffocating metallic smell of blood like rusted iron was branded in my mind. The gurgling, scraping and rattling sounds from his chest and throat.

Does anyone of you present here even understand the sight, smell, and sounds of murder?

• I was so shocked and full of fear that the sight, smell, and sound of murder have been imprinted in my mind ever since. It has never left me. Too many families and police officers have also gone through similar experiences.

• And as if the murder of four beautiful children was not horror enough for our families and communities; as if it was not heartbreak enough, we have seen another innocent and beautiful child murdered in her sleep. Just two weeks ago. A beautiful innocent 13-year-old, Andrea Lallan, at 13 years old, brutalised, raped and murdered.

• A beautiful innocent 13-year-old Andrea Lallan. She went to bed, and in the night, she went from dreaming and warm to cold and dead in a body bag.

• She went to bed to have dreams of being a great dancer, singer, doctor, or just a great human being. Sleep was her escape from the reality that she had just returned from reporting to the police that she was raped.

• Instead of having sweet dreams, this beautiful, innocent child was murdered in the ongoing saga of the NIGHTMARE THAT IS OVERSEEN BY THIS GOVERNMENT. At 13 years old, brutalised, raped and murdered. A short, brutal life of poverty and pain.

• Her sweet dream became a body bag. Her uncle, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, was also shot dead. Her father is still fighting for his life. Be warned that today, the rain is falling on the home of the Lallans, but tomorrow it will be falling on yours.

• How can anyone living in this country not honestly believe that the only function of this Government is to be handmaidens to the grotesque?

• The only function of this Government is not to function. This is a fact! When will our dreaming, beautiful children stop ending up in body bags? Imagine at 13 years old, after a life of poverty and pain, brutalised, raped and murdered.

• Many of you listening do not care because she was not your child, grandchild, or relative. But be warned that today, the rain is falling on the home of the Lallans and Peterkins, but tomorrow

it will fall on yours.

• How do you all live with yourselves buying more body bags than book bags for our children? The favourite bags of other world leaders are computer satchels and briefcases, yours are golf

bags and body bags. Are you all not ashamed that everyone is seeing you do nothing?

• This is a Government detached from reality. Ministers Al Rawi and Manning, who from birth lived exceedingly privileged lives paid for by the taxpayers of this country who know nothing of the

realness of life, were chosen to speak on working peoples’ issues at a TV6 post-budget forum.

• How much more detached from reality can this Government be to send a man whose family is collecting hundreds of millions in rent to justify $20.50 per hour for the working man? How can this

Government and their friends justify citizens working for $164 daily? These citizen’s lives are paralysed.

Our Paralysed Country

• This is our paralysed country. This is our country, where tens of thousands of parents sacrifice their personal needs to give their children a fighting chance. And of those thousands of parents,

hundreds who are already going without must bury murdered children.

• Why don’t you all act to remove the pain these parents feel for their murdered daughters and sons?

• There are more murders per year than good local songs.

• There are more murders per year than bright inventions.

• There are more murders per year than good paintings.

• There are more murders per year than concerts.

• There are more murders per year than gold medals we win.

• More murders than trophies.

• Murders made in Trinidad and Tobago are more popular than cultural events.

• Murder has become more popular than culture.

Murder and pain are the new culture of Trinidad and Tobago.

• Indeed, murder and pain, every day, are the new culture of

Trinidad and Tobago.

• Blood is our culture.

• Pain is our culture.

• Everything is pain.

• Everywhere is pain.

• Everybody’s in pain.

• Only the PNM MPs, senators, financiers, fake elites, and their families in this country see, hear, and feel no pain. They’re insulated by ten-ply money and power from political office. We’re not a nation of five-year-olds. Neither are we a nation of fools.

• This paralysing pain did not fall from the sky. And to say, like the Prime Minister said, that we are a violent society is to think that violence is like pollen; it spreads in the wind.

• If a child had said something like that, you would have laughed at them because you’d know that their brains are not yet developed to understand cause and effect.

• We’re not a nation of five-year-olds. Neither are we a nation of fools. We don’t make glib statements like we’re a violent society and leave it at that.

• We identify the problems and the causes and then find solutions. We know problems have been added to more problems; these have multiplied and then shared.

Violent crime is like a giant, terrifying monster that keeps changing

shape.

• Violent crime is like a giant, terrifying monster that keeps changing shape. A giant monster of which all we know is paralysing fear, anxiety, hopelessness, and crippling pain.

• But it’s a monster that can be tackled. It is a monster that must be tackled. We must be humble. When offered help, we must take it. We must be brave. We must be honest. We must have respect for people. We must get serious.

• You cannot run away from the responsibility to protect our citizens.

SWAHA budget recommendations

The SWAHA board and executive wish to suggest the following for consideration:

*Local Government and Social Development: Increased allocations to local government to facilitate effective infrastructural works and the efficient delivery of essential services to all communities. Increased engagement with NGOs/NPOs for social development programmes.

* Crime: Focus on developing a crime action plan to reduce serious crimes, including the introduction of nationwide CCTVs, drones to patrol borders, and automation of Port and Customs. Seek foreign consultants to plan and execute crime plans.

*VAT and other taxes and duties: removal of VAT on essential foods and everyday pharmacy items. Remove duties and taxes on baby food and products. Removal of seven per cent online purchase tax

*Education: GATE: Allow funding for programmes with a need or future need and do not limit people who have already benefited. Expansion and upgrade of the Textbook Management Programme to include greater availability of e-textbooks. Complete construction of unfinished primary, secondary, and ECCE schools.

*Legislative agenda: Revisit procurement legislation to promote transparency and accountability. Proclaim legislation on data privacy, data protection, cybersecurity, and full proclamation on the Electronic Transaction Act. Property tax legislation to be reviewed in the context of current unresolved issues.

*Taxation: Automation of BIR, including cashless payments and refunds. Revisit tiered approach to PAYE. Tax incentives for non-institutional investors (public) to increase participation in the securities market.

*Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises: Public/private equity fund or venture capital fund. Expand Nedco funding. Government guarantee for MSME loans. Reintroduction of the Fair Share Programme. Further incentivise SME listing on the TTSE.

Recommendations from public consultations.

*Agriculture: Donny Rogers highlighted the pressing issues affecting crop reduction. Currently, Nestle is importing milk and poultry production has hit a low point. He has recommended for the Government to present a comprehensive plan for the agriculture sector.

*Crime: Selvonne Mitchell, from Montrose, suggested linking all existing residential and commercial security cameras in Chaguanas into an overarching security system that systematically covers areas, in collaboration with artificial intelligence, to identify criminals as they move from place to place.

*Culture: Banjela, the 2020 Calypso Young King, recommended establishment of partnerships with educational institutions to integrate cultural education into the curriculum, fostering a sense of cultural pride and identity from an early age.

*Education: Jasmine Ali recommended the completion of construction of the Preysal Primary School. Students of the Preysal Government Primary School currently are being housed at a community centre for the past five years.

*Health care for children/ disability grants: Patricia Lezama asked for the wait time and lack of beds at the nation’s hospitals to be addressed. Expressed her concerns with the funding given to senior citizens and persons with disabilities and recommended that the funding for differently abled children be increased as it doesn’t cover their medical expenses.

Kristen Townsend, of Mayaro, revealed that residents have to go to Sangre Grande or San Fernando to access hospital care and recommended the upgrade of the Mayaro health facility. Dr Narendra Roopnarine spoke about the need to improve the quality of health care provision and quantity. He suggested maternal health education be part of the school curriculum.

*Legal firearm access: Mr Ramjandra Singh mentioned difficulties in obtaining an FUL (firearm user’s license). Recommended the process be made easier.

*Infrastructure: Every consultation nationwide, people rightly complained about the state of our roads and bridges.

Christopher Jackman, from the OWTU, has emphasised that the shutting down of Petrotrin not only meant that we no longer produced fuel for domestic consumption but also did not produce bitumen, which is necessary for paving roads. Residents nationwide have complained about the dilapidated state of recreation grounds nationwide.

*Petrotrin pension plan: Mr Golcharran, a former employee of Petrotrin, raised concerns about the status of the pension plan which has been steadily deteriorating since the company’s shutdown. He recommended that the Government should allocate money to bolster the Petrotrin pension plan and for the minister to provide an update on the plan.

*Praedial larceny: Many farmers have raised the problem of praedial larceny at our consultations, and this deserves a special mention. The farmers suggested the Government provide the praedial larceny units with vehicles, proper equipment, and staffing.

*Prisoner rehabilitation: Nigel Moses, from Arima, suggested the need for a proper parole system in TT which can help with the judicial system to ensure crime goes down.

*Recreation: Kenneth Rampersad, from Tumpuna, wants to see more recreation grounds illuminated and upkept as there is a need for more people to exercise and increase family bonding.

*Scholarships: Emmerson Cheddie, of Siparia, requested increased allocations to provide more scholarships for poor and disadvantaged students.

*Special-needs citizens: Helen Narinesingh, from Arima, recommended more special-needs schools and an increase in special-needs grants.

*Tourism: In Sangre Grande and Mayaro, residents recommended tourism development along the east coast. They requested that the east coast be developed to become a premier tourist destination in the Caribbean.

*Water: Citizens all over the country have complained about the lack of water and the fact that not only does the Government expect them to pay bills and not receive the service, but the Government is looking to raise rates. Some residents complained of not getting pipe-borne water for almost 50 days. Some citizens called for the CEO of WASA to be removed.

*Youth unemployment: Ambika Goysne highlighted her concerns about employment for youth regarding the over saturation of the on-the-job programme. She highlighted that the waiting period for a first interview can take years. She recommended that the Government address this issue.

Areas of greatest concern

If this government had consulted with the people before this budget, the finance minister would have had an accurate list of priorities to impact areas of greatest concern positively.

That’s what we did when we were in government. When you talk to people, they will often give you very useful solutions. Indeed, citizens are very creative and informed. Many came to these consultations well-prepared, some with pages of ideas to share.

And that is the tragedy of this Government, they do not harness the potential, the experience, the ideas, or the greatness of our society. That is the attitude of this Government. We, on this side, are showing the country that our philosophy and practice are different, and the way we govern is participatory. People have given this Government endless chances for co-operative participation, but it fails them every time.

Year after year, this Government comes to this House and deludes themselves that the country is doing well, that the population is doing well, while citizens know the truth. It has cost our citizens $420 billion since they have taken office and will cost a further $59.209 billion (or more correctly $71.4 billion) over the next 12 months. Totalling almost $500 billion dollars or half a trillion dollars.

By the end of fiscal 2024, this Government would have spent almost half of a trillion dollars.

This year, the minister has themed the budget “Building Capacity for Diversification and Growth,” but he has given us zero measures during his four hours presentation for diversifying the economy and generating new revenue streams.

There can be no prosperity without economic security

Minister Imbert spent the first few minutes of his presentation, as always, trying to convince us that he inherited a country in crisis caused by low energy prices but was able to reverse the trend and move towards growth. Nothing is further from the truth as our macroeconomic indicators reveal.

There can be no prosperity without economic security.

GDP collapse

post- 2015

This Government’s anti-people decision-making undermined our economy, so much so that the real GDP collapsed by 10 billion dollars within the first year of the PNM taking office. And the country has not recovered to date!

The per capita GDP, which grew to $140,000 during my tenure, has now collapsed to $110,200, a loss of 21 percent of its real value, and yet this minister continues to boast of how well he has managed the economy.

Instead of taking this country forward, the Government’s policies have regressed the broad-based distribution of the economy back to the 2006 levels of per capita GDP. The data is obvious. The transformation that the minister boasted about last year was the polarisation of the economy away from a broad-based, multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary structure to one in which only the factored few mega businesses survived. When the minister boasts of the economy growing, take it with a handful of salt and instead ask him how much the economy has contracted since he took over the treasury in 2015.

I am proud that my Government has the distinction of the highest average national output in our country’s history during my tenure.

Forex challenges

If the Government had continued UNC’s sport, education, and health tourism initiatives, our country would have generated millions in foreign exchange from new sources to complement revenues from the energy and small export manufacturing sector.

The deliberate, unilateral, and spontaneous decision to close Petrotrin has deprived our citizens of hundreds of millions of US dollars.

The Government’s laissez-faire attitude to non-energy businesses, even international ones like Arcelor Mittal, has seen positive foreign exchange revenue generators leave our shores.

The result has been a dramatic collapse in our foreign exchange reserves to the point where the Government is forced to borrow

at higher than necessary interest rates to refinance foreign debt. In my Government’s last full year in office, 2014, the official data

published by the Central Bank showed that we had approximately US$11.5 billion in reserves, roughly 13 months of import coverage.

The Central Bank puts our net official reserves at $6,258.4 million or less than eight months import cover, as of August 2023.

This is even though the Government has received billions in US dollars from traditional sources, including taxes and royalties

from international energy companies and local manufacturers.

Added to that would have been the US$2.5 billion in drawdowns from the HSF, another US$644 million, received from the IMF

via the special drawing rights, more than US$1.3 billion additionally received from the oil windfall, net borrowing of TT$ 33.6 billion over last eight years and the millions received in foreign grants during the pandemic. Where has this money gone?

But on Monday, when the minister had the opportunity to level with the country about the actual state of affairs of our nation’s foreign exchange reserves, the minister once more opted to misdirect and mislead.

I ask why the minister references 2022 figures for foreign exchange holdings? Why is he referring to gross official reserves rather than net official reserves?

The answer is obvious. Having failed miserably actually to increase the real level of foreign exchange reserves, Minister

Imbert is now artificially increasing the statistic by adding the foreign exchange held in private accounts in commercial banks

(over which he has no control) as well as the savings in the HSF to come up with a new metric which he has termed “external fiscal buffers.”

Thousands of business people, particularly small and medium-sised businesses, and even average citizens, disagree with

Minister Imbert when discussing forex availability.

When businesses face closure because they cannot get money to pay suppliers, they are in crisis. SMEs constitute over 90 percent of registered businesses in this country.

These businesses hire many workers, especially in retail. For these persons, the inability of their employers to get foreign exchange is a crisis.

The shortage is also a crisis for parents and children pursuing education abroad who cannot get foreign exchange to continue to pay fees.

I call on the minister to engage in real and meaningful consultation concerning the nation’s foreign exchange distribution. This needs to be a public forum in which members of the public and small and medium-sized businesses are allowed to participate.

But for this to be an open discussion with a real chance of a successful outcome as opposed to yet another talk shop, the minister needs to come clean to the national population about who has been getting these billions in foreign exchange over the past eight years.

It is high time that the minister stops hiding behind legislation and provides answers to the population. Citizens being denied access to foreign exchange must be told who is getting it, how much, and why.

I also challenge the Minister to tell this country what new foreign exchange revenue streams he has piloted and developed over the past eight years he has been in office and how much revenue each has generated.

I want to use this opportunity to direct this minister to the UNC’s national economic transformation plan, which contains many new initiatives for potential foreign exchange earners, which he is free to use.

Foreign Direct Investment

Foreign direct investment is a significant source of foreign exchange, economic growth, and development. Growing FDI is a

clear indication of investor confidence in an economy.

Here is the status of this country regarding FDI:

According to the most recent data published in the World Investment Report 2023, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to TT

was negative, at -$0.5 billion. Instead of investment coming into TT, investment was leaving.

In fact, the data shows clearly that while the Caribbean has had positive FDI, TT has lost FDI for five of the seven years

for which data is available under this PNM Government.

While this minister fiddles away with investor confidence in this country, other countries in the Caribbean are openly pursuing

investors with actual initiatives, proper marketing, and deliberate decisions to address investor decision-making.

Under Minister Imbert, from September 2016 to December 2022, TT lost US $1.5 billion as foreign direct investment fled the country.

By comparison, my Government generated high levels of foreign direct investment, with FDI from the energy sector totaling US$1.459 in 2015.

As an example of sustainable FDI, in 2013, my cabinet approved the project development agreement for a new petrochemical plant, the Mitsubishi methanol to dimethyl ether (DME) plant.

Rating agencies

The minister spent quite a while in his presentation patting himself on his back because of Moody’s agency rating of this country.

To be clear, Moody’s kept the country’s credit rating at Ba2, the same level the year before. That rating is within the noninvestment grade category or junk status.

Allow me to remind the minister of some indisputable facts. Before he became minister, our country’s rating by Moody’s was A3, which was prime investment grade. Today, the minister celebrates a collapse to Ba2 JUNK status rating as a significant achievement.

Only this minister can celebrate achieving a lower score than his predecessor and claim it is an improvement.

The minister has a long way to go to recover the ground and international credit rating and reputation that he has cost this country. This is nothing to celebrate; a positive or stable outlook does not matter when you are five levels lower.

But even the outlook itself is speculative, and in this case, it is premised on the continued high revenues from oil and gas following the Russian/Ukraine conflict, or improved oil and gas production as well as the Government adopting specific harsh

policies including further cutting of transfers and subsidies, implementation of the property tax, higher electricity rates and higher water rates, issues which severely compromise the standard of living of a substantial part of our country’s population.

Back in July, the minister announced that the new rating would have positively impacted the cost of borrowing by the Government.

However, in the recent bond issue of US$560 million, the Government was forced to offer rates of interest higher than other similar instruments on the market to attract investors, and again, the minister announced this as a reason to celebrate.

Value Added Tax

One of the most vexing issues for the business community of every size has been this Government’s abuse of businesses by illegally withholding VAT refunds.

In May 2023, Minister Imbert admitted to TT that the Government owed businessmen almost $8 billion in VAT refunds at the end of March 2023.

Six months have since passed, so logically, more businesses would have applied for due refunds since then.

The minister had advised then that a combination of bonds and cash payments would be used to settle a large portion of these arrears and suggested that repayment would have started between June and August 2023.

I know that businessmen listening to the minister’s presentation last Monday would have been exceptionally disappointed that the minister avoided any mention of settling refunds.

The hijacking of VAT refunds by the minister means that critical operating funds of businesses are inaccessible, and this directly affects the ability of these businesses to invest in stock, pay staff, and meet debt obligations to financial institutions; it affects the businesses credit rating and viability.

This multi-billion dollar outstanding and overdue VAT rebate is tantamount to the Government forcing struggling businesses (already burdened by crime, lack of access to forex, and a plethora of taxes) to provide tax-free loans to the Government.

The finance minister is sending mixed signals to the commercial sector.

He continues to punish legitimate businesses abiding by the law, dutifully paying their taxes, and submitting their VAT returns on time in favour of those who break the law and evade the VAT.

I turn now to Labour.

There can be no prosperity without job security.

Over the past 97 months and counting, the Government has unleashed a reign of terror and brutality against organised labour, the working class and their representative trade unions as never witnessed before.

I call on the Government to immediately effect the fair resolution of all collective agreements in the public sector; to initiate the requisite comprehensive actioning of all recommendations and conventions advocated for by the ILO, and the incorporation of such into domestic law.

A UNC Government commits itself to ensuring that the following broad policy positions are enacted:

The repealing and replacing of the Industrial Relations Act.

Repealing and replacing the outdated Severance and Benefits Act.

The simplification of the registration process for trade unions.

Incentivising the trade union movement, to encourage workers to become financial members of trade unions.

A greater recognition and space for the role of trade unions in promoting income and wealth equality in the society through the free collective bargaining process.

The resolution of all collective agreements in the public sector.

A comprehensive actioning of all recommendations and conventions advocated for by the ILO, and the incorporation of such into domestic law.

A review of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Agency.

These and other priority areas will form the basis of the UNC’s focus for the benefit of trade unions and the working class and be subject to widespread social dialogue with stakeholders and partners within the country prior to implementation and execution.

Health

I come to the public health care system, and say, there can be no prosperity without Health security.

The Public health care system is littered with eight years of collapsed promises, abandoned or delayed projects, warped priorities, lack of life-saving pharmaceuticals and equipment, critical medical staff shortages, and gross mismanagement, all leading to premature and unnecessary deaths of patients.

Those circumstances have led to patients like Mr Trevor Pardais, having to wait for cataract surgery since 2019; Mrs. Dropatie Komal has had her cataract surgery postponed so many times at the SFGH that she is almost blind now. She has been awaiting cataract surgery since 2018.

I could provide the names of many other patients who continue to suffer because of rank ineptitude and negligence under the woeful mismanagement of this Government.

The poor health care includes a lack of medicine, insufficient nursing and senior medical staff, non-hiring of junior medical staff, shortages of surgical supplies, lack of operating theatre time and space for surgeries, and laboratories not functioning because of a lack of reagents.

You come to this Parliament and boast about state-of-the-art hospitals at that, yet these are so severely understaffed that patients’ lives are perpetually at risk.

The New Point Fortin Hospital and the Arima hospitals lack so many doctors, nurses, and other staff that patients still suffer when they go to these hospitals

The following are the latest figures that show how understaffed these two hospitals are:

Arima Hospital

Doctors – 95 out of 115 on the Establishment

Nurses – 384 out of 458 on the Establishment

New Point Fortin Hospital

Doctors – 23 out of 29 on the Establishment

Nurses – 113 out of 187 on the Establishment

But boast away ministers of finance and health. Citizens know the truth as they live it with each passing day.

Families of patients often must do blood tests outside of hospitals and return with the results sometimes two to three days later when the patients have become critically ill and end up dying.

Patients sometimes must waste precious hours for an ambulance. All of that is in a public health sector that receives a large chunk of taxpayers ’money each year and under a Government that claims to care.

PAHO and WHO have identified Trinidad and Tobago as being at a crisis point with non-communicable diseases (NCDs). NCDs account for three-quarters of deaths in the country. The Minister’s much-touted National Strategic Plan on NCDs is a hopeless failure.

In successive budgets, the Government promised in vain to expedite surgeries, address the shortage of medical personnel, and collaborate with private sector investors for an appropriate health insurance model.

But thousands of patients cannot get cataract surgeries. Shortages of CDAP medical items are a dreadful fact of life for our elderly and ailing population.

At Accident and Emergency, there are sometimes 50 or 60 critically ill patients hoarded like animals in a pen. Some patients die in overcrowded emergency departments while awaiting urgent medical care and attention. It is a national horror story!

The Government recently launched a $133 million car park at San Fernando while it is still to construct the much promised $72 million angioplasty and angiogram laboratory at the hospital.

The Prime Minister said almost eight years ago that he was waiting on the Welch Report to open the Couva Hospital. After the report, we were told a partner was needed to work with the Government. No partner came forward. No one wants to work with this Government!

They then recommended an offshore medical school to be facilitated there. Eight years later there is no offshore medical school. You would remember the Minister of Health saying there were insufficient doctors to open the Couva Hospital.

Today hundreds of young, qualified doctors are awaiting jobs. But no employment is being provided by this failed administration.

There are almost 1,300 nurses missing from the establishments of the RHAs. Among those who are working, many are given three-month or one-year contracts and are unable to meet the requirements for obtaining loans. The terms and conditions of employment and the insufficient number of nurses in the system make an extremely demoralizing situation.

In addition, there are insufficient specialized nurses in areas of accident and emergency, cardiac care, renal failure care and all other specialized areas of medicine.

Despite speaking about the St James Cancer Centre and now the Augustus Long Hospital being assigned as a cancer centre, the whole management of chemotherapy across the country is inefficient.

There is a lack of proper chemotherapeutic drugs, which are first-line drugs to be used. So, when patients should be continuing to receive chemotherapy in cycles every two to three weeks, they find out that there are no more of the drugs available.

At our public hospitals, severely ill patients are still being kept in emergency departments sometimes for two to three days waiting for a bed on a ward.

The Couva Hospital remains closed for medical care except for Covid patients. A modern $2 billion institution with hundreds of millions of proper medical equipment is deteriorating from lack of use.

The Government has simply abandoned a state-of-the-art hospital where all facilities are available for the management and treatment of patients.

Now I turn to the covid situation. The deaths of thousands of patients rest squarely on the shoulders of this Government and its covid propaganda team.

The Opposition has called for a commission of inquiry into this whole Covid mismanagement. After persistent calls, a committee was set up and reported negligence in the management of Covid-19 patients. The committee made 19 recommendations in a 103-page report. Not even one of the recommendations was implemented.

We wish to assure the nation that when we get into Government, will ensure there is a full and independent Commission of Enquiry into the management and the deaths of more than 5,000 Covid-19 patients.

Education

The decline in national administration is most evident in the all-important education sector, where there has been a deterioration in standards, lack of modernization, and fall-off in the provision of appropriate and essential resources.

It is important to reflect briefly on the state of the education system that we left in 2015. Trinidad and Tobago was at the forefront of the world.

We were praised by the then United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon in 2015 for being the first country in the world to achieve universal early childhood education.

We were commended by the IADB in Washington and by then US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for our work in education.

We received international global awards for the positioning of Trinidad and Tobago in education as a world leader in ICT in Education.

We became one of the strongest leadership teams in Latin America and the Caribbean, the GRULAC group, leading alongside Uruguay.

We were ahead of the US. President Obama was asking ICT companies in the US to provide about $100 million each so that laptops could be provided for children in underprivileged areas that country. Russia introduced laptops one year later. We were world leaders in ICT in education.

Within one year of PNM coming into Government, most of the successful policies were reversed. They scrapped the laptop program.

The Prime Minister said there was no evidence that laptops brought value to education. Imagine that position from a leader in the modern world.

Under his administration, computer classrooms became a thing of the past. My administration had at least 50 computers each in most secondary schools, along with ICT technicians.

The technicians were dismissed, and audio-visual rooms went into decay. The PNM scrapped the 21st century Smart classrooms, in which we had partnered with Samsung.

Could you imagine such a policy position in a world of artificial intelligence and one in which ICT is taking nations to the moon?

The ECAL learning – e-learning – was scrapped by the Rowley administration. They soon had to confront the outrageousness of their decision with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when more than 100,000 students were left without education for almost a year and a half because they had no IT devices, and the IT platform was not functional.

They scrapped the purchase of textbooks for students when our administration had purchased more than two million textbooks over the five-year period. Every child in every school in every class in every subject received a textbook so they could receive their education. That was an example of our emphasis on learning!

We filled all vacancies for teaching positions. All the teachers in primary schools were certified with at least a first degree in education.

We hired moderators, facilitators, and substitute teachers and we worked with the Teaching Service Commission to ensure that almost all vacancies were filled, including deans of discipline.

Not only has the PNM Government systemically destroyed the ICT systems and the laptop program, but they scrapped the homework centres. A total of 402 schools had homework centres on evenings for the benefit of thousands of students.

For a period, the school feeding program became nonfunctional and today it is inefficient, with thousands of deserving students unable to get nutritious meals. That exists in a country in which poverty and malnutrition is on the rise.

With respect to the school transportation system, they refused to pay drivers and so many students suffered. Again, a reflection on their lack of appreciation of students and education.

Their performance in examinations is no better. The pass marks in the SEA worsened from year to year and more students failed in CSEC. Over the past eight years, Trinidad and Tobago has experienced the worst level of education ever in its history.

Last year examinations revealed more than 9,000 SEA students out of 18,000 failed to get a pass. No amount of remedial learning in the summer vacation would have helped any of these students to do better.

The Rowley Government has refused to continue construction of any one of the 71 schools that we left. Some were almost 98 per cent completed.

This PNM Government is victimising our young innocent children. My administration completed 106 schools. Now students are made to study in cramped and makeshift conditions at mandirs and mosques. That is the legacy of the PNM in education after eight years!

In typical PNM style, school repairs and maintenance are routinely started almost at the end of the mid-year vacation. Each year, this has an adverse effect on students ’education.

Hundreds of vacancies now exist in denominational and Government schools and there are worsening levels of performance in SEA and CSEC examinations.

My administration undertook public consultations and introduced the Continuous Assessment Component to support the SEA.

TechVoc skills training and education was expanded from 42 schools to 105 participating secondary schools as a means of aiding students who were not academically inclined.

We encouraged more teachers to be trained in TechVoc. Today, TechVoc is almost a thing of the past in our secondary schools. Most TechVoc centres have been shut down by this myopic administration.

There have been cutbacks in GATE support for tertiary education and in the number of scholarships to deserving students.

Trinidad and Tobago’s education sector has been wrecked by incompetence and mismanagement, a lack of vision, and an absence of appreciation of the modern global dynamics in the sector. This Government has severely set back our country’s human capital potential.

Agriculture

There can be no prosperity without food security.

Young people are not entering agriculture because they don’t want the backbreaking kind of agricultural work that the older generations like me grew up doing.

We can look at how quickly Guyana is developing an export oriented agricultural economy with soyabean, rice and corn. We are still experimenting. What is UWI doing? What has happened to the Imperial college of tropical agriculture?

Under my Government we started to grow onions and potatoes. What has happened to the project? It should be brought back.

What has happened to the potential we have for tropical Flowers for export. We should lend Government focus on the production of ornamental flowers for export.

The Minister says that more local goods for meals will be used in the school feeding program. How many farmers are being incentivised to produce more local meats, hams, sausages, eggs, chicken, fish on fish farms.

The Government must sign multi-year contracts with framers to provide goods to the school feeding program. This is the only way they will be able to access credit and financing from banks to increase production.

Under the pnm food imports went from 5 billion to 7.3 billion. This is a terrible indictment on the Minister of Agriculture and the Government.

We need to find out what categories of food have witnessed the highest increases in quantity or is it really that increased prices have accounted for the change and not quantities.

We are at a stage where our capacity to import corn and soya to feed chicken production could be severely affected due to war and climate change. Where in this budget have, they addressed this given our very high per capita consumption of chicken? We should focus our farmers on corn and soyabean production to provide feed for chicken and small ruminants.

The Agriculture Ministry has to have new and innovative thinking. They are regressive in their thinking and stuck in time. The Agricultural Degree programs at UWI must be revised.

Students receiving GATE and entering the program must agree to start farms at the end of their first two years on lands provided by govt and including modern modes of production.

At the end of four years, they will spend a fifth completing the academic requirements. They will be trained as agri entrepreneurs from the classroom itself.

This is making learning not only relevant but adding jobs and food for the table. This type of program will find private sector participation.

In a similar way community farms can be established and achieve production within 12 to 18 months.

With respect the question must be asked as to whether the technical people at the ministry share and better yet are able to push such programs to success.

Wooden furniture made of high-quality teak, pine, mahogany, sip are woods in demand worldwide. We can get such lumber here or in Guyana.

Currently, we are importing Malaysian rubber wood furniture. With a little vision and retooling of the youth programs, what prevents us from producing high quality furniture for local use.

As we grow exports, youths can earn while they learn. But this is not the kind of imaginative Minister that currently exists.

The opportunity to be an entrepreneur is real, but it requires seeding and mentoring.

Ways in which the Government has dismantled the sector:

Failed tax and duty concessions:

They have neglected to introduce a comprehensive program of tax concessions, subsidies, and waivers for agricultural needs like chemicals, vehicles, fishing vessels, equipment, and pest control.

Inadequate compensation for natural disasters:

In November 2022, unprecedented flooding affected farmers significantly due to the Government’s failure to manage waterways properly. Despite this, almost a year later, the Government has not compensated these farmers, discouraging potential entrants to farming.

Wholesale market modernization:

Promises of improving and expanding wholesale markets have remained unfulfilled for years.

Land administration:

The failure to conduct a meaningful GIS audit by the land administration division has led to an increase in squatting on agricultural state land.

Land lease delivery:

Over 2,000 farmers with expired leases or awaiting two-acre agricultural plots from Caroni (1975) Limited are still waiting for Government action. Promises to honour this arrangement since 2015 remain unfulfilled.

Access roads and drainage:

Government has neglected to develop proper access roads or drainage for agricultural lands, exacerbating flooding during the rainy season. Farmers have had to resort to crude irrigation methods due to irregular water supply from WASA.

Technical assistance and extension services:

Extension services have failed to address locust infestations and the spread of the Giant African Snail and Huanglongbing disease, harming crops throughout the country.

Financial support for farmers:

Without land leases and tenure, small farmers cannot access Government financial support or assistance, limiting their ability to recover from crises like theft or flooding. This discourages people from entering farming.

Neglecting rehabilitation of estates:

Promises to revive the cocoa industry have remained unfulfilled. Instead, foreign grants seem to be prioritized over supporting local farmers, causing plantation owners to abandon cocoa farming.

Ineffective measures against praedial larceny:

The Praedial Larceny Unit has been virtually dismantled due to inadequate funding and resources, resulting in the rampant theft of agricultural produce and livestock, causing substantial losses for farmers.

Heritage and stabilisation Fund

Since the creation of the HSF in 2007, former Prime Minister Manning and myself who led this country through turbulent times, never once withdrew a cent from the HSF. In fact, during my tenure, my Government deposited 1.178b US dollars or approximately 8.0b TT dollars.

Minister Imbert on Monday boasted how well the fund was doing, he met the fund in 2015 with a net asset value of $5.6 Billion US and has decreased it to $4.7 Billion US37.

This Rowley led PNM Government is the only Government in our history to withdraw from the Fund. They have not only withdrawn but they have raided the HSF. Their hands were tied to make withdrawals, so they came to Parliament with their simple majority amended the law to remove the restrictions to withdraw.

From 2015 to present, this PNM Government has raided the HSF of $2.5 Billion US dollars or $15 Billion TT dollars.38

Trinidad And Tobago Revenue Authority

The TTRA is another broken promise repeated annually from 2016.The Opposition’s position on the TTRA is quite clear. You do not need a TTRA for improved tax collection. If we resource and properly support the existing BIR and Customs and Excise it will bear fruit.

The TTRA is another vehicle which the Government intends to use erode independent institutions. It is an opportunity to pad with political operatives. But due to their incompetence and poorly drafted laws they will not be able to implement it.

In budget 2016 the Minister boasted that, “We will restart the process for re-establishing the platform for a Revenue Authority in the country. It is expected that the Authority will be in place by the end of the new fiscal year” (pg. 36).

After seven years how on earth can Minister Imbert reasonably expect the population to believe that he would deliver on his promise this year.

While focusing on leakages of tax collection, they turn a blind eye to proper procurement practices, that is why we have seen the nation’s crumbling roads, poor quality health care, massive flooding among many other ills facing our country today.

Procurement

The former chairman of the Office of Procurement Regulator informed the country that Trinidad and Tobago loses a conservative figure of $5.2b per year on corruption, which can be used to deliver goods and services.

My Government introduced and passed the Public Procurement Act No. 1 of 2015, to govern public procurement bringing integrity and transparency to the procurement of goods and services and more effective scrutiny of project execution and accountability with respect to the disposal of public property.

The PNM at every stage tried to frustrate the passage of the law and even walked out of the JSC set up for the Bill. Before the Act was fully proclaimed, they came several times to the Parliament to gut the Procurement Act again, chipping away the independence of the Office.

Property Tax

The Minister announces with fanfare, that it will only cost $648 per year in property tax. That is because he is calculating on the lowest threshold.

When this property tax is implemented, citizens who are already reeling from high food prices, high fuel prices, increasing costs of transport, soon higher electricity and water prices- will have to now be further burdened.

We call on the Government to immediately cease and desist from charging Property Tax. Property tax is charged on the Property and not on the person. This means if ownership of the property is changed the tax attaches to the property and flows with it.

Where a person is unable to pay the property tax- there are provisions in the law where the Government has several options open to it:

They can sell your property to recover the Property Tax owed to them.

The Government can levy on your personal property- stove, fridge, microwave and other items seize it, sell it and recover their taxes.

Don’t believe because you have no deed, no tax will be charged on you. The law is wide to capture those who are squatting, HDC homeowners, inherited property and private ownership.

Local Government

I wish at this juncture to congratulate all councillors, aldermen, mayors and chairmen on their victories and hope you serve our country and your burgesses well.

I especially want to thank those who supported our great party that gave us this victory at the polls on August 14.

The only parts of the Local Government Reform Act that the Government proclaimed was the provision dealing with extended the terms of councillors from 3 years to 4 years.

The rest of the Act remains un-proclaimed.

The backbone of LG reform is the Government’s advocacy on the use of property tax. This is a hoax.

The facts are that the law which they propose is that:

The LG Corporations will only collect residential taxes- not agricultural, commercial or industrial taxes. That will go to Central Government.

The Property Tax will not be in addition to the allocations given to the Corporations.

So, it will not be more money for the corporations. It will act as a set-off on the allocation they were granted. So, if the corporation is allocated 10 million in the Budget and Property Tax collection is $2 million.

The corporation will not have $12m. They will only have $10m; the difference is instead of the $10m coming from Central Government only $8m will come from Central Government and $2m from Property Tax.

Gambling Commission

Minister Imbert has been repeatedly promising, budget after budget, that the Gambling industry of T&T would be fully regulated and operational so that the country could reap the benefits of domestic and foreign investments in this industry.

Indeed, gambling is one of the main avenues for cleaning drug money and gang financing.

In his Budget statement of 2016, he promised that” we will put in place in 2016 a suitable regulatory system with appropriate controls to address chronic gamblers and other negative issues which affect families and the society at large,” (Pg.37).

Minister Imbert has come to the nation for his eighth budget presentation and again promised that “We are moving rapidly to the full proclamation of the Act by December 2023 and the operationalization of the Gambling Control Commission,” (Pg.47).

Statistical Institute

Minister Imbert in his Budget 2016 stated that, “We will bring to the Parliament in the new fiscal year, legislation to establish an independent Statistical Institute” (pg. 23).

Minister Imbert in Budget 2023 promised again that, “The Government intends to bring the National Statistical Institute of Trinidad and Tobago Bill before the Parliament for a vote at earliest opportunity.” He also promised that, “the next Household Budget Survey is scheduled to take place before the end of 2022.” And that, “a National Population Census is also planned for 2023,” (pg. 16-17)”

Today, as we are almost ready to end 2023, more than seven years after promising a Statistical Institute in 2015, T&T is still without one. The National Statistical Institute Bill 2018 is still languishing before a JSC, yet the minister has come again in this year’s Budget to again make promises of a Statistical Institute.

With respect to the National Population Census promised in last year’s budget, which it should be noted was also a repeated broken promise from Budget 2021, it is still not completed. Hopefully, the Household Budget Survey which has been started can be completed on time.

In addition to failing to deliver on their promise of a Statistical Institute, this Government has managed to starve the CSO of resources.

The CSO’s director of statistics, Andre Blanchard, as reported in a newspaper in 2022 revealed before a JSC meeting the challenges faced by the CSO and true treatment meted out to the CSO by this Government: Blanchard stated that in order to collect the data that can be used to guide national policies, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) needs more staff.

“We have just been producing the bare minimum and partly because of staff restrictions in terms of available resources.

This Government clearly is deceiving the population with their broken promises to improve data collection in this country. The reality instead shows contempt for updating statistics to guide public policies.

Transfer Pricing

Minister Imbert is promising yet again in his eighth budget presentation to deliver on Transfer Pricing, to plug revenue leakages and take advantage of tax liabilities of foreign corporations operating in Trinidad and Tobago, to the value of billions of dollars.

In 2016, seven years ago, he made the same promise stating that, “We are advancing work on the introduction of transfer pricing legislation which will represent another mechanism in our thrust to optimise our tax revenue,” (pg. 37)

Today in 2023 and yet another budget presentation of Minister Imbert, he is promising that “we have secured an international consultant to advance a policy framework for appropriate legislative action,” (pg. 53).

The population cannot trust Minister Imbert to deliver on this promise as he has failed to do so since budget 2016 resulting in billions of dollars in revenue from taxes to foreign corporations being lost.

CONCLUSION

Nothing works and no one in Government cares to fix it.

What we have before us is a population that has reached boiling point. People are totally fed up. Nothing works, and no one in Government cares to fix it.

The education sector has fallen apart. In schools, bullying, sexual assaults, and crime have become normal.

Infrastructure has collapsed; every week, some community must burn tyres just for someone to pay attention.

Healthcare is beyond recovery; essential machines don’t work; essential medication is not available; healthcare staff are targets for criminals; private healthcare is only accessible to the wealthy; young doctors are terrified of speaking out for fear of victimization.

Public utilities are hopelessly inefficient. Need I talk about the abject failure that is WASA and T&TEC?

Small businesses are suffering, and their owners are literally falling sick just in their efforts to make an honest dollar.

Workers and unions, just because they’re trying to save themselves from drowning, they’re treated like enemies of the state.

Just because they want to negotiate for fair salaries. Why is that a problem? Why do hard-working people not deserve to be paid well? Why must they not also want to have a good car and house, to dress nicely, to entertain themselves every so often, and to eat well? No macaroni pie for them?

Why must having these things be for only the fake elites and financiers who have captured this Government? Why? Why? Why? Why? And why to all this pain I’ve only sketched out?

Everywhere you look, people have reached raging frustration.

This is what causes our national anger. Everywhere you look, people have reached raging frustration. They’re fuming mad, they’re short-tempered, and many have a constant angry facial expression.

Every single day, there are home invasions somewhere; there is murder somewhere, there is vandalism somewhere. Everyday there is extortion. Everyday! Why is this normal? Everyone has run out of patience with this Government.

And I dare this Government to tell me otherwise. I dare this Government to challenge me when I say that people have become psychologically downtrodden, beaten, and abused because of all the grotesque social problems they have caused.

People are depressed. Citizens have seen the interference in our previously independent institutions and have lost belief and hope that decency and merit are desirable traits.

This Government is an Architect of Pain!

People now believe that to get ahead, they must be in some form of skulduggery. And the Government is leading this by example.

Let them challenge me on this. This Government has literally driven working people to the point of fatigue and exhaustion.

The Finance Minister continues to make poor decisions and even poorer projections and expects people to believe him. Nobody in this country believes him. Nobody in this country believes this Government.

This budget is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because even as I speak today, even as we are here, comfortably ensconced in this chamber talking highfalutin talk about the economy, some innocent citizen will be robbed and murdered.

There is a war on the outside. Criminals are at war with innocent citizens whom the Government have left the citizens to fend for themselves. There can be no prosperity without safety! And our people are not safe. Only yesterday the TTPS said they solve 13 out of every 100 murders! This means that 87 per cent of the murderers are never caught.

The Government has chosen to bury its head in the sand. While they boast about how to prosper, all I see is how people suffer.

The Government is no longer in charge – they have ceded control to the criminals. Criminal enterprise is flourishing and prospering under this administration. How can you say prosper and enjoy when the Government’s mantra is suffer and destroy?

A Time for citizens to stand their ground

I must speak for the people of this nation who are paralysed with fear. Some ask, why are civil society, business groups, validators, and large swathes of the citizenry so silent and numb to violent criminality and this Government’s persistent, blatant economic and social destruction of our country?

It is a deep fear of this vindictive Government which terrorizes the people. It is because people know that we live under a wannabe dictatorship that will stop at nothing to punish and destroy them for standing up for their rights and livelihoods.

Ours is a country fearful of violent crime and fearful of the Government that is supposed to protect us. · Remember, bad Governments inflicted the worst evils that mankind has ever had to endure. The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad Government that abets it.

So, when your Government, who you employed to work for you, has chosen to cruelly and deceptively abandon you to the whims and fancies of criminals and economic parasites, I say to the citizens of this great country: you must stand your ground

I thank you.

One of the most vexing issues for the business community of every size has been this Government’s abuse of businesses by illegally withholding VAT refunds.

In May 2023, Minister Imbert admitted to TT that the Government owed businessmen almost $8 billion in VAT refunds at the end of March 2023.

Six months have since passed, so logically, more businesses would have applied for due refunds since then.

The minister had advised then that a combination of bonds and cash payments would be used to settle a large portion of these arrears and suggested that repayment would have started between June and August 2023.

I know that businessmen listening to the minister’s presentation last Monday would have been exceptionally disappointed that the minister avoided any mention of settling refunds.

The hijacking of VAT refunds by the minister means that critical operating funds of businesses are inaccessible, and this directly affects the ability of these businesses to invest in stock, pay staff, and meet debt obligations to financial institutions; it affects the businesses credit rating and viability.

This multi-billion dollar outstanding and overdue VAT rebate is tantamount to the Government forcing struggling businesses (already burdened by crime, lack of access to forex, and a plethora of taxes) to provide tax-free loans to the Government.

The finance minister is sending mixed signals to the commercial sector.

He continues to punish legitimate businesses abiding by the law, dutifully paying their taxes, and submitting their VAT returns on time in favour of those who break the law and evade the VAT.

Phoenix Park industrial estate

In his budget presentation, the minister boasted that the Phoenix Park Industrial Estate was “in the process of being commissioned.”

This is the same Phoenix Park Industrial Estate the minister promised in the 2020 budget which would have been commissioned in September 2020.

Four years later, the country still awaits this promise to materialise. So, one would have reasonably expected that the estate would have been fully occupied by now.

On Monday, the minister boasted that his Government has already closed 14 investments at the park. There are 78 lots plus five factory shells in this industrial park developed by taxpayers.

If the minister's figures are to be believed, it would mean that after four years, despite the multiple assurances that the Government had secured investors for this park, more than threequarters of the park is still unoccupied.

Economic growth predictions

The Finance Minister has made bold predictions about the economy's growth. On Monday, the Finance Minister, true to form, openly ignored the facts in front of him and announced an economic growth rate of 2.7 per cent for 2023 and a similar projected growth rate for 2024.

This minister is a serial offender, and I call him out today. In 2016, he predicted a growth rate of negative 2.9 per cent. The actual contraction for 2016 was negative 7.5 per cent.

For 2017, he predicted a growth rate of negative 1.9 per cent; the actual contraction was negative 4.8 per cent. For 2018, Minister Imbert predicted a positive growth rate of 1.9 per cent, and the economy fell by negative 0.6 per cent.

In 2020, the minister was too unsure (or perhaps afraid) to give an estimated annual projection, choosing to make quarterly determinations. The economy contracted in 2020 by negative 9.1 per cent.

In his 2022 budget speech, the minister claimed that because of multiple major energy projects coming online, the energy sector would grow by 13 per cent in 2022, with overall economic growth of up to five per cent.

Here are the hard, cold facts. The energy sector output did not grow, it contracted by 0.3 per cent percent in 2022, and in last year's budget speech, the minister revised his prediction from the high of five per cent to two per cent.

Now, the Finance Minister told us on Monday that the energy sector, “may contract by a further 0.6 per cent in 2023”

Public-sector debt

When Minister Imbert assumed office in September 2015, the public sector debt to GDP ratio was 44.1 per cent.

According to the minister, the current figure is approximately 71.1 per cent of GDP.

The adjusted general government debt outstanding in 2015 was $75.4 billion. As of March 2023, that figure is $129.1 billion.

That is a 71 per cent increase in the adjusted general government debt under Imbert.

These are official figures. What they show is that as a direct result of the policies of this Government, there has been a substantial increase in debt since 2015 when they took office. More than this, though, the minister’s idle boast of falling debt figures noticeably ignores the $8 billion VAT refunds owed to businesses and the billions owed to contractors and suppliers of goods and services to the Government.

I note that the minister had committed to disburse a $1.5 billion government-guaranteed loan to, amongst other things, reduce the outstanding debt to contractors in the housing sector, but without stating the total outstanding debt to contractors and suppliers of goods and services to the Government and statutory bodies.

In fact, given the minister's failure to provide accurate outstanding debt figures, we have had to resort to inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, which has revealed that the Government owes billions to WASA, TTEC and NIB.

By deliberately withholding payments of VAT and monies owed to contractors and providers, the minister is deliberately skewing the public debt while suffering the businesses that provide goods and services to the Government.

Budget deficit

Over seven years, this Government has run budget deficits totalling $62 billion with the three largest deficits in our nation’s history in fiscal years 2017, 2020 and 2021 all under this Finance Minister.

This works out to an average central-government operating deficit of $8.9 billion per year.

He has announced another year of deficit in fiscal year 2023 with a consecutive projected deficit in 2024!

So going from six years of deficit to a tiny surplus in one year and then back again to two years of consecutive deficits is, for this minister, somehow a representation of positive fiscal management.

But here again are the facts. The minister has made much of this minute fiscal surplus relative to the sizes of the deficit budgets

he has been running. However, I think the population of this country is fully aware that the surplus was an illusion caused by increased revenues on the one hand as world prices of energy products soared due to the war (this had nothing to do with the Imbert Government) and reduced expenditure on the other hand by refusing to meet existing debt obligations in the form of VAT and debts to suppliers as I mentioned before.

Indeed, if these debt obligations had been addressed in 2022 from the energy windfall, as it should have been, there would again have been a substantial deficit for the year of close to 10 per cent of the GDP and not the minuscule surplus the minister is pointing to.

Expenditure and borrowing figures

On Monday, the minister identified his estimated fiscal deficit as $5.197 billion to be financed by borrowing. This is based on a projected revenue of $54.012 billion and an expenditure of $59.209 billion for the 2024 fiscal year.

But the devil is in the details, when you delve deeper and read the fine print, which shows that the expenditure and borrowing figures are understated.

An accurate calculation reveals that the total government expenditure for fiscal 2024 is projected at $71.422 billion, over $12 billion higher than the figure the minister provided to the nation.

This figure includes charges on account of the public debt and development programme expenditure, which are all expenditure items.

This means that the difference between government revenue and government expenditure is substantially larger than the minister spoke about.

The Government intends to borrow a whopping $13.244 billion in the current fiscal year.

NIS contributions and increase in retirement age

In his budget presentation on Monday, the Finance Minister announced the Government’s intention to increase the retirement age from 60 to 65.

This has been under consideration by the Government for several years following various actuarial reports which cited the growing deficit between contributions and expenditures.

In his statement, the minister advised that the National Insurance Fund is facing a combination of sustainability challenges and the risks of reserve depletion.

He advised further: "I am encouraged by the progress being made in the consultative sessions relating to the increase in the retirement age from 60 to 65 years. This process, including with labour unions, is at an advanced stage of conclusion with majority support for increasing the retirement age.”

I found this curious because I remember in his budget speech last year, Minister Imbert said, “We in the Ministry of Finance have recently completed our consultations on the retirement age, held by Minister Manning with key stakeholders, including trade unions and business organisations."

Additionally, in our consultations with the labour movement, trade unions firmly opposed any retirement age increase.

So, which one is the untruth? Did the minister mislead the country in his budget statement last year or this year? And why?

The number of contributors in 2015 was 516,926. By 2017, the number had fallen to 479,036. According to the last audited report of the NIB, by 2022, the number of insured contributors has collapsed to 455,448

This means that there are now 61,478 persons less making contributions to the National Insurance Fund than there were before Minister Imbert took over, resulting in a lower contribution value than would have occurred had these persons still been employed.

This points to one factor that the Government has not considered in treating with the NIF – the obvious need to increase employment levels and significant job creation will generate a roll-on benefit of increasing the contributors and contributions to the National Insurance Fund.

Importantly, a comparison of the NIB reports revealed that 2,194 employers have stopped contributing to the National Insurance System between 2015 and 2022, which suggests a substantial amount of business closure.

This also means increased job losses as the businesses go out of operation. Has the minister assessed why these employers have stopped contributing and its effect on the viability of the NIB?

Instead of widening the contribution base, which Government policy should have focussed on, the minister’s policies seem to have deliberately and illogically contracted it.

Inflation

Inflation quite simply is the rate of price increase. It is indisputable that citizens have been confronted by continuously rising prices, particularly of food and transport, over the last few years caused directly by the actions and inactions of this Government.

Again, here are the facts, taken from the Central Bank data centre online. The most recent data is from July 2023, but it is known that prices would have continued to rise over the last two months as well.

From 2015 to now, transport prices have increased by 27 percent. The price of food in general, has escalated by 47 per cent.

This minister raised diesel by 194 per cent, premium 36 per ent and super by 158 per cent, respectively since 2015.

The price of fish has increased by 26 per cent, milk, cheese, and eggs now cost you 32 per cent more, bread and cereal prices have risen by 41 per cent, cooking oil is now a whopping 67 per cent more expensive, fruit prices are now 52 per cent higher with vegetable prices have risen by 61 per cent.

Citizens seeking medical care must pay 45 per cent more today than in 2015. Increases in housing costs and rent are also in the double digits.

For every increase in inflation, however small, we have a parallel and cumulative fall in the standard of living of our citizens. It means the real value of every dollar spent, the amount of goods and services that a dollar can buy, continues to collapse.

And this has had a crippling effect on citizens, especially those least able to afford it, like persons on fixed incomes as pensions, disability, public assistance etc.

But, the Government’s decision to tie wage settlements to four per cent means that men and women employed in the fire, police and prison service, teachers, defence force, public servants etc all must face the fact that their salaries have fallen in value, and the fall was substantial. The minister on Monday projected continued price hikes into 2024 and 2025.

THIS points to one factor that the Government has not considered in treating with the NIF – the obvious need to increase employment levels and significant job creation will generate a roll-on benefit of increasing the contributors and contributions to the National Insurance Fund.

Importantly, a comparison of the NIB Reports revealed that 2,194 employers have stopped contributing to the National Insurance System between 2015 and 2022, which suggests a substantial amount of business closure. This also means increased job losses as the businesses go out of operation. Has the Minister assessed why these employers have stopped contributing and its effect on the viability of the NIB?

Instead of widening the contribution base, which Government policy should have focussed on, the Minister’s policies seem to have deliberately and illogically contracted it.

Inflation

Inflation quite simply is the rate of price increase. It is indisputable that citizens have been confronted by continuously rising prices, particularly of food and transport, over the last few years caused directly by the actions and inactions of this Government.

Again, here are the facts, taken from the Central Bank data centre30 online. The most recent data is from July 2023, but it is known that prices would have continued to rise over the last two months as well.

From 2015 to now, transport prices have increased by 27 percent. The price of food in general, has escalated by 47 percent.

This minister raised diesel by 194 per cent, premium 36 per cent and super by 158 per cent, respectively since 2015.

The price of fish has increased by 26 per cent, milk, cheese, and eggs now cost you 32 per cent more, bread and cereal prices have risen by 41 per ent, cooking oil is now a whopping 67 per cent more expensive, fruit prices are now 52 per cent higher with vegetable prices have risen by 61 per cent. Citizens seeking medical care must pay 45 per cent more today than in 2015. Increases in housing costs and rent are also in the double digits.

For every increase in inflation, however small, we have a parallel and cumulative fall in the standard of living of our citizens. It means the real value of every dollar spent, the amount of goods and services that a dollar can buy, continues to collapse.

And this has had a crippling effect on citizens, especially those least able to afford it, like persons on fixed incomes as pensions, disability, public assistance etc.

But the Government’s decision to tie wage settlements to four per cent means that men and women employed in the fire, police and prison service, teachers, defence force, public servants etc all must face the fact that their salaries have fallen in value, and the fall was substantial.

The Minister on Monday projected continued price hikes into 2024 and 2025.

ENERGY SECTOR

There can be no prosperity if there is no energy security.

During the local Government election campaign, Government spokespersons erroneously claimed that the former Government “decimated” the energy sector.

Expired NGC contracts

They say they found all the contracts between the NGC and the companies in Point Lisas had expired when they came into Government. Every budget debate we hear that.

Fisherman and Friends of the Sea sent an FOIA request to the NGC and asked about the status of the contracts for natural gas supply between the NGC and plants at Point Lisas as at August 31, 2015 (a week before the general election of 2015).

The NGC replied via letter dated August 20, 2023, saying there were twenty such commercial arrangements as at August 31st 2015 and of these 20 only two were on a “month to month” basis meaning that only two had expired.

That is two out of 20 – but every year in this debate we hear about how they found all the contracts expired and recently on the campaign trail we heard “the vast majority had expired.”

In similar manner when they were prosecuting the case for the closure of Petrotrin they went all over the country bad talking that company (a State-owned company) and its workers (citizens of Trinidad and Tobago).

The Prime Minister described Petrotrin as a “ward of the treasury.” Once again this was proven to be totally false and misleading.

In another FOIA request, FFOS were told by the Ministry of Finance in a letter dated December 6, 2021, that for 2016, 2017 and 2018, Petrotrin received no Government subvention.

There was certainly no subvention made to Petrotrin from 2010 to 2015. There was a subvention in 2019 but that was money to wind up the company.

I refer to these two pieces of propaganda because it is important to debunk what is being said by those opposite. These are just two. There are other untruths but we will deal with all in due course.

Things Going Downhill

A lot has changed in the energy sector since the PNM came into Government over eight years ago and a lot has gone downhill.

It is evident that against the backdrop of collapsing production, plant closure and migration of skilled workers those opposite continue to pat themselves on the back and think they are doing a good job. Only they think so.

A statistical comparison between 2015 and 2022 paints a stark picture of a frightening decline in this sector marked by the closure of the refinery five years ago, the closure of Atlantic Train 1 in 2020 and the now permanent closure of some plants at Point Lisas including the closures of the Mittal Steel complex in 2016, the MHTL’s M1 methanol plant in 2017, the Yara ammonia plant in 2019 and the Methanex Titan methanol plant in 2020.

All these are now part of the growing industrial dystopia that is Trinidad and Tobago standing against the backdrop of our decaying landscape which includes the ghost towns of Fyzabad, Galeota, Marabella, Vistabella, Claxton Bay, Palo Seco and Santa Flora.

It is simply bemusing that the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister continue to tell this nation that our economic hopes remain pegged to the energy sector when as a Government they have allowed every single metric, indices, and industry specific indicator to persistently decline after eight years.

In the last eight years (Sept-2015 to 2023), the country’s energy sector has experienced a frightening level of contraction as evinced by drastic reductions of:

· 63 per cent in drilling activity.

· 32 per cent in natural gas production.

· 37 per cent in LNG production.

· 28 per cent in oil production.

Direct jobs in the energy sector have collapsed by 52 percent between 2015 and 2022: From 22,500 in 2015 to 10,000 being employed.

Rig days have fallen by 63 per cent between 2015 to 2022.35

Our energy sector is solely hanging on because of the high global prices, but take away high global prices, this Government has eroded the appeal, attraction, and competitive nature of the energy sector.

This decline in the energy sector under the PNM since 2015 has manifested in the scaling down or departure of energy services companies including Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Halliburton among others. These companies are departing Trinidad and Tobago because of a lack of upstream drilling activity.

The other part of the country that the decline in the energy sector has impacted is Chaguaramas which is the major logistics hub for offshore oil and gas activities.

Lower drilling since 2015 means less rigs, less seismic vessels, less supply vessels, less need to supply food, water and fuel to these vessels and less demand for hotel rooms.

This coupled with the decline in yachtie arrival has led to the decline in the peninsula as evinced by the closure of restaurants, the closure of Republic Bank, Royal Bank and the closure of the Massy stores all under the watch of the PNM.

These are markers of decline. The decline of Chaguaramas (located in the constituency of the Prime Minister) started well before Covid and can be directly correlated to the decline in the energy sector.

The PNM’s friends in the Energy Chamber will never tell you these things. They are too busy hugging the multinational oil and gas giants to care about the SMEs among the energy service companies which are owned and operated by the hard-working citizens of this country.

They have sat silently for the last eight years as the energy sector declines and places like Galeota and Marabella turn into tumbleweed and scrap iron heaps.

The Government and the multi-nationals have also forgotten about “local content.” The multi-nationals are back to their old ways of hiring foreign service companies ahead of those owned by citizens.

In 2025 when we return to Government that will come to an end as we will make local content and the inclusion of our SMEs a priority.

Natural Gas Production

I turn now to natural gas. Every time the Finance Minister reads a budget speech, he gives a forecast for natural gas production for the next year which is always very wrong.

In his 2021 budget speech delivered on October 5, 2020, he said natural gas production would average about 3.2 billion cubic feet per day in 2021. The actual production for that year was 2.58 billion cubic feet per day.

In delivering the 2022 budget on October 4th, 2021, the minister predicted that in 2022 natural gas production would be 3.37 billion cubic feet per day. The actual figure was 2.69 billion cubic feet per day.

In his 2023 budget he said production would increase in 2023 to just under 3.0 billion cubic feet per day. The reality is we are well short of that forecast – as the average for the year is around 2.5 to 2.6 billion cubic feet per day.

One wonders if this pattern is deliberate. Is the minister trying to paint a bright picture for the rating agencies and the IMF?

Whatever he is doing, there is a significant gap between the Government’s outlook for natural gas and the reality on the ground. The reality is the state of natural gas production is worrying.

Even the Prime Minister has expressed concern. In the Express of September 13, 2022, he was reported to have said that he had seen a diagram on the outlook for natural gas production which showed a marked decline in natural gas production around 2026, 2027 and 2028.

He went on to speak of far-reaching consequences for Government revenues and the quality of life of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. In contemplating the consequences of the future, the Prime Minister must reflect too on the fact that his Government took eight years before they awarded any acreage for exploration.

It was his Government that led a failed bid round for shallow water acreage in 2018 and it was his Government that reversed and diminished incentives to stimulate exploration and development drilling. So, what the Prime Minister saw in that diagram should not surprise him at all.

Decline in jobs

The decline is further evinced by the labour force data from the CSO’s labour Force Survey Bulletins. These reports, which are done on a quarterly basis show person with directs jobs in the petroleum sector in the third quarter of 2015 at 22,500.

Fast forward to the first quarter of 2023 and that figure has collapsed to 10,000 persons with direct jobs in the petroleum sector.

The Central Bank data room reports these figures on an annualized basis. According to the Central Bank data room, in 2015 there was 20,500 people with jobs in the petroleum sector with that figure collapsing to 9,800 in 2022 or a decline of 52 per cent.

These numbers of retrenched do not include the tens of thousands who were employed through SME’s and contractors that provided services to the energy sector.

What accounts for this and where have these people all gone? Attributing this to the closure of Petrotrin does not come close to telling the full story. This decline is much bigger than the closure of Petrotrin.

It is a sector wide decline unprecedented in the history of the energy sector and the product of the policies of the persons who accuse the UNC of decimating the energy sector between 2010 and 2015.

Comparison 2015 to 2022

When we look at drilling, rig days have collapsed by 63 per cent from 2015 to 2022, oil production fell by 26 per cent, natural gas production by 30 per cent, LNG production by 37 per cent, ammonia production by eight per cent, energy sector real GDP fell by 28 per cent and of course refinery throughput fell by 100 per cent.

As for oil production, the PNM has no plan. Oil production is now at approximately 56,000 barrels per day, and it keeps sliding every year. The changes to the Supplemental Petroleum Tax from the last budget have had no impact and have not stimulated investment.

They boast that Heritage is profitable. But Heritage Petroleum didn’t drop from the sky in November 2018. Heritage Petroleum inherited a functioning, operational oil company namely the upstream assets of Petrotrin including Trinmar. That upstream arm of Petrotrin was always profitable. So, there is nothing to boast about when it comes to Heritage Petroleum.

When they closed Petrotrin, they sent home many experienced nationals of this country, some with 20 years, 30 and 40 years’ experience. They replaced them with people who are ex-employees of BP and other foreign multinationals, the premise being that such persons would somehow be magically better than those who worked at Petrotrin.

That experiment has failed. While we await the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the tragedy at Paria one cannot help but wonder whether what happened at Paria in February 2022 was the result of the loss of the institutional memory of the facilities at the port in Pointe-a-Pierre, a loss that was incurred when all the experienced personnel at the port operations of Petrotrin were sent home.

Refinery Closed for Five Years

On the issue of the Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery, which has now been closed for almost five years – the Government simply has no plan. Just like crime, they have no plan.

The Chairman of Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited has thrown his hands in the air and says, “make me an offer”. No one is making an offer and the Refinery continues to rot and turn into the biggest scrap iron heap in the Caribbean.

When they were prosecuting their case for the closure of the refinery in 2018, they described Petrotrin as a ward of the treasury. That was a lie.

The closure of the refinery has decimated the economy of south Trinidad and in particular the fence line communities of Marabella, Vistabella, Gasparillio, Claxton Bay and San Fernando.

The refinery is rotting away while the Prime Minister with typical arrogance boasts “we have exited the refining business”.

Dragon

I turn now to the Dragon deal. The PNM has made this the central pillar of their energy policy. In fact, five years ago, in the budget speech delivered on October 1, 2018, it was listed as the first of six game changers.

While we support any initiative to get natural gas to our ailing plants at Point Lisas and to the three LNG trains at Point Fortin (there used to be four), the public ought to know details of what was signed in Caracas last month by the Minister of Energy and how this is different from what was signed by the Prime Minister in August 2018.

The Opposition notes that there has been no change in the position of the United States as regards the provision of the OFAC license which the Venezuelans have objected to.

There are many more questions which we hope the Government will answer in this debate. When, for example, is this natural gas from the Dragon field estimated to arrive in Trinidad?

What will this project cost the people of this country through the participation of the NGC? We again reiterate that we are not opposed to this project but there is a need for transparency especially where commitments are being made on behalf of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

Deepwater

A few weeks ago, the Minister of Energy signed three deepwater production sharing contracts with a consortium of BP and Shell. They were the only companies that participated in this bid round.

Overall bids were received on four blocks out of the seventeen that were put out. The signing of the contracts was done without the presence of the media. The media was not invited.

We on this side wish to remind the Minister that the acreage he is awarding does not belong to him. It belongs to all the people of this country.

In addition, no information was put out as to what BP and Shell’s minimum work obligations in these three blocks were. Is that not in keeping with the principles of transparency which I am sure these companies are required to subscribe to in Europe.

Like the Dragon deal, the public does not know what was signed with BP and Shell and what these companies have committed to. At the signing, the Minister of Energy went on to speak to the importance of the deepwater frontier to this country’s future.

If exploring the deepwater province is so important why then did it take the PNM eight years to award three blocks. In the period 2011 to 2015, our Government awarded nine deepwater blocks for a combined 1.2 million hectares of acreage.

This has directly resulted in the discoveries off the northeast of Tobago that make up the Calypso project which is being hailed as a possible saviour for this country if Woodside can make a commercial case for its development.

As our energy sector struggles for oil and gas this Government must state why millions of our state assets have been abused and misused in sweet hand deals for Niquan.

From the very start we in the Opposition told this Government not to waste to valuable billion-dollar assets on a company like Niquan that had no track record or skill to deliver on this mandate.

But what did this Government do? This Government took the WGTL Plant which burdened Petrotrin will billions of debts and sold it to Niquan at a peppercorn rate.

This Government then took our scarce gas supply and gave Niquan a guaranteed supply of gas. But that wasn’t enough then ensured that Niquan would have a pay or take agreement with Petrotrin for all offtake from Niquan to be purchased.

Today we ask the Government, where is the millions in tax revenue that the Prime Minister promised Niquan would deliver? Where are the jobs? Where is the forex?

Instead, today Niquan is owing the state, or the Upstream Downstream Company limited reportedly over US 19 million dollars. 36Niquan is owing creditors billions of dollars.

After giving away billions in taxpayers assets, all the Prime Minister could tell the public is about “Maga dog.” Today we want answers on when the Government will recover the money owed to the state.