David Lee's maths suggests $8b 2023 budget deficit

Contrary to the Finance Minister’s assessment of a $3 billion deficit in the budget, Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee’s maths suggested there would be an $8 billion deficit.

Lee said Minister of Finance Colm Imbert, in his mid-year review, said TT would have a greater deficit than that suggested at the start of 2023, which was $6 billion.

“What happened to those expenditures that we came in this Parliament to approve, that extra $3.8 billion?” he asked. “Because all things being equal, we are supposed to have a deficit of about $6 billion for fiscal 2023. But the minister spoke about a deficit of $3 billion, which is 1.8 per cent of GDP, which is in the norm.

“There is some deception in these budget figures,” he said “My projected deficit for fiscal 2023 is supposed to be at least $8 billion.”

He said he based the deficit on the review of the economy, which suggested a total revenue of $53 billion, and based on expenditure which was debated and approved in Parliament, was $62 billion.

“So (from) my simple maths, we are supposed to have an $8 billion deficit, not the small amount that the minister presented here.”

Lee said the energy sector's contraction of .3 per cent, as suggested in the mid-year review of the economy, was the ninth contraction of the energy sector.

He said real GDP in the petrochemical sector fell by 3.5 per cent, output in the crude oil exploration and extraction industries fell by 4.5 per cent; condensate extraction contracted by 8.2 per cent; and refining LNG industries decreased by one per cent.

“This is not a simple contraction,” he said. “Listening to the ministry of energy, I don’t know what they have done in the last eight years. The government has never surpassed the work of the PP government in the energy sector.”

Lee went on to address statements by MP for Laventille East/Morvant and Minister in the Ministry of Housing Adrian Leonce, who on Friday listed a number of initiatives positively contributing to his constituency. Lee said those initiatives had always been around.

He called for incentives for his constituency as well, asking for the government to fulfil its promise to build the Claxton Bay Primary School, provide vehicles for the St Margaret’s Police Station and to clean waterways in Claxton Bay.