Great budget expectations

WHAT IS likely to be the last budget before the next general election is to be unveiled on September 30. Expectations are high.

Minister of Finance Colm Imbert will have to achieve several goals. At the forefront will be the need to account symbolically for government expenditure since 2020, in which spending projections totalled $218.9 billion.

Budgets in recent years have steadily increased (2020: $49.57 billion, 2021: $52.43 billion, 2022: $57.69 billion and 2024: $59.21 billion). All eyes will be on whether the coming package will return the country to the days when allocations crossed the $60 billion threshold.

In the process of his accounting, Mr Imbert will have to address bread-and-butter issues affecting the pockets of ordinary citizens.

For instance, the Regulated Industries Commission in 2023 recommended a whopping 15-64 per cent hike in electricity rates.

The Cabinet has remained mum on this matter, but Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales’ statement this week that the rate review is “not a priority for the Government” at this time suggests it may be dead in the water. It will be for the Minister of Finance to say, and to clarify, as well, the situations relating to water rates and the future of TSTT.

It is tempting to expect “election goodies,” but they are not a foregone conclusion. A government confident of its return may wish to temper expectations. Additionally, depending on the timing of the poll, there could be a final opportunity to engage with fiscal matters at a mid-year review; a supplementation or variation would be at the discretion of the Cabinet.

Nor should we expect the old definition of “goodies” to hold in the current uncertain global landscape.

A hallmark of the Rowley administration, as it relates to budgetary matters, has been to focus more on the making of “tough decisions,” as opposed to dangling carrots before voters. Even when emphasis has been placed on new incentives, allowances or grants, these have sometimes seemed artificial or been one-off.

The challenge for Mr Imbert will be to bridge the gap that has too often arisen between the once-a-year flood of fiscal measures and the feeling of the person in the street. Crime and the Auditor General issue loom uneasily over the proceedings. As does the property tax.

A report by the TT International Financial Centre launched in August found that between 2017 and 2023, a lower percentage of the population held bank accounts. Of those who did not, 41 per cent said the reason was simple: they didn’t have enough money to merit one.

Such statistics push against grandiose narratives of economic resurgence and challenge the Government to come good on September 30 by balancing prudent management with service to the people.