$1.76B in development funds from last Budget unspent, figures show

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

More than $1 bil­lion al­lo­cat­ed for cap­i­tal works in the 2026 bud­get has not been spent.

As the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2027 Bud­get looms on Mon­day, stake­hold­ers are call­ing for speed­i­er im­ple­men­ta­tion of projects.

For every $10 Gov­ern­ment orig­i­nal­ly set aside for de­vel­op­ment projects in the last bud­get, about $6.89 was record­ed as spent.

The fig­ures cov­er the same fis­cal year. The Gov­ern­ment’s Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme (PSIP) 2026 shows that $5.6662 bil­lion was ap­proved for the 2025 PSIP. The same doc­u­ment put pro­vi­sion­al ex­pen­di­ture for fis­cal 2025 at $3.9065 bil­lion.

The dif­fer­ence is $1.7597 bil­lion. It is not ev­i­dence that $1.76 bil­lion was wast­ed, lost or miss­ing. It is the dif­fer­ence be­tween the orig­i­nal al­lo­ca­tion and the pro­vi­sion­al ex­pen­di­ture record­ed for the same fis­cal year.

The pro­vi­sion­al fig­ure in­clud­ed ac­tu­al spend­ing from Oc­to­ber 2024 to Au­gust 2025 and es­ti­mat­ed spend­ing for Sep­tem­ber 2025. The doc­u­ment shows it is sub­ject to re­vi­sion once fi­nal ex­pen­di­ture da­ta is ver­i­fied.

FY2025 ORIG­I­NAL AL­LO­CA­TION FY2025 PRO­VI­SION­AL EX­PEN­DI­TURE DIF­FER­ENCE

$5.6662b *$3.9065b $1.7597b

Econ­o­mist Ronald Ramkissoon be­lieves Mon­day’s Bud­get should do more than an­nounce an­oth­er set of mea­sures. He said it should tell the coun­try what hap­pened to mea­sures an­nounced be­fore.

“I am hop­ing that the ini­tia­tives that they would have an­nounced, that they would pro­vide some kind of ev­i­dence as to how these have been work­ing. And if they are not work­ing, why not?” he said.

He said the same test ap­plies to spend­ing: “Mon­ey can be spent, but are we get­ting val­ue for mon­ey spent?”

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira said the pre­sen­ta­tion al­so has to be clear about the po­si­tion the coun­try is in.

“I think there has to be a lot of trans­paren­cy in what he says,” she said.

Nunez-Tesheira said rev­enue re­mains a ma­jor test. She said Gov­ern­ment has yet to show a “re­al, mean­ing­ful pre­scrip­tion” for gen­er­at­ing rev­enue with­out lean­ing heav­i­ly on tax­es, sur­charges or oth­er costs borne by con­sumers and busi­ness­es.

Guardian Me­dia re­viewed ten Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­grammes, from fis­cal 2017 to fis­cal 2026. The search found projects that re­turned in suc­ces­sive de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes while the records con­tin­ued to show stud­ies, sur­veys, en­vi­ron­men­tal work, re­vised plans or close-off ac­tiv­i­ty.

NI­HERST Sci­ence City, Cou­va FY2017-FY2019: Ex­ist­ing con­tracts were be­ing closed. NI­HERST lat­er record­ed a board de­ci­sion to re­cruit a firm for project close-off.

For­res Park en­gi­neered land­fill FY2018-FY2026: De­sign and stud­ies con­tin­ued. FY2022 re­port­ed 81% com­plete; lat­er pro­grammes still list­ed as­sess­ment and en­vi­ron­men­tal work.

To­co fast fer­ry port FY2017-FY2025: Named in nine suc­ces­sive PSIPs. Sur­veys, En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment (EIA) and fur­ther en­vi­ron­men­tal da­ta con­tin­ued. No com­plet­ed port was ver­i­fied.

La Brea dry dock / ma­rine fa­cil­i­ty FY2024-FY2026: EIA work was fol­lowed by Phase I jet­ty work. De­vel­op­ment Es­ti­mates show an ex­pen­di­ture trail, but the full scheme re­mains to be rec­on­ciled.

Scar­bor­ough berthing ex­ten­sion FY2023-FY2026: As­sess­ment, de­signs, li­cens­ing and sur­vey work con­tin­ued across suc­ces­sive pro­grammes.

Moru­ga fish­ing port FY2023-FY2026: The land­side cen­tre was de­liv­ered. A sep­a­rate ma­rine fa­cil­i­ty and jet­ty re­mained in the pro­gramme.

The To­co fast fer­ry port ap­peared in nine suc­ces­sive PSIPs from fis­cal 2017 to fis­cal 2025. The records moved through bore­hole and geo­phys­i­cal sur­veys, an en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact as­sess­ment and fur­ther en­vi­ron­men­tal da­ta for the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty. No com­plet­ed port was ver­i­fied in the re­view.

At For­res Park, an en­gi­neered land­fill project ap­peared from fis­cal 2018. The 2022 PSIP re­port­ed the project as 81 per cent com­plete while al­so de­scrib­ing mon­i­tor­ing and ge­ot­ech­ni­cal work. Lat­er pro­grammes con­tin­ued to record traf­fic analy­sis, waste-char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion work, sam­pling and en­vi­ron­men­tal as­sess­ment. The 2026 pro­gramme still pro­vid­ed for as­sess­ment work.

The NI­HERST Sci­ence City project at In­di­an Trail, Cou­va, of­fers a dif­fer­ent ex­am­ple. The 2019 PSIP said NI­HERST had been asked to close ex­ist­ing con­tracts for a new ap­proach. NI­HERST lat­er record­ed an Oc­to­ber 2018 board de­ci­sion to re­cruit a firm for project close-off.

Ramkissoon said re­peat­ed projects need prop­er sta­tus re­ports.

“There’s a bad habit of not giv­ing an up-to-date po­si­tion on where the var­i­ous projects are,” he said. “If the project is halfway, 50%, 75% or did not start, I think the tax­pay­ers need to know what is the sta­tus of that project.”

He said not every project can be com­plet­ed in one year. But tax­pay­ers should be told why work did not hap­pen, how far it reached and what comes next.

“The key word re­al­ly is ac­count­abil­i­ty,” he said.

Econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James said the spend­ing fig­ures sit in­side a wider test of eco­nom­ic per­for­mance.

“It’s not what went wrong, it’s what was done rel­a­tive to what was promised,” James said. “And what the out­come has been in terms of eco­nom­ic per­for­mance.”

James point­ed to Stan­dard & Poor’s pro­jec­tion of a 2 per cent con­trac­tion and said weak­ness in the en­er­gy sec­tor con­tin­ues to af­fect Gov­ern­ment rev­enue. He said the for­eign ex­change short­age al­so re­flects the coun­try’s fail­ure to di­ver­si­fy far enough in­to sec­tors that can earn their own for­eign ex­change.

“As a con­se­quence of the fail­ure to di­ver­si­fy, those prob­lems per­sist,” he said. “And once they per­sist, they are go­ing to drag down eco­nom­ic growth in the near term.”

Ramkissoon said the pub­lished da­ta can­not be talked away. “I don’t know that, you know, we can pre­tend that this sit­u­a­tion is any­thing dif­fer­ent from the da­ta be­fore us,” he said.

The lat­est Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice labour force fig­ures show 564,000 peo­ple with jobs in the first quar­ter of 2026. That was 5,900 few­er than the 569,900 record­ed three months ear­li­er.

Over the same quar­ter, the num­ber of un­em­ployed peo­ple rose from 25,700 to 31,900, an in­crease of 6,200. The un­em­ploy­ment rate moved from 4.3 per cent to 5.4 per cent.

Those fig­ures sit be­side Gov­ern­ment’s job claims. In April, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said more than 15,000 jobs had been de­liv­ered across min­istries be­tween April 2025 and April 2026.

Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John told Guardian Me­dia last week that Cab­i­net gave per­mis­sion for 1,801 peo­ple to be hired through the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve. She said all 1,801 re­main work­ing.

Guardian Me­dia first spoke to work­ers hired from the Na­tion­al Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve in May, when some de­scribed de­layed pay and un­cer­tain­ty over con­tract ex­ten­sions.

One work­er said em­ploy­ees had com­plet­ed 11 fort­nights of work but had been paid on­ly through the sixth fort­night.

“We got the six fort­nights. We haven’t get the sev­enth, eight, nine and 10 fort­night be­cause this week from Mon­day is our 11th fort­night,” the work­er said in May.

The same work­er said on­ly the first three-month con­tract had been re­ceived, al­though em­ploy­ees were told their jobs had been ex­tend­ed.

“We on­ly got the first con­tract. We nev­er get a sec­ond con­tract for the next three months,” the work­er said. “I hear from the check­er we get an­oth­er three months ex­ten­sion.”

An­oth­er work­er, a for­mer le­gal sec­re­tary who had been un­em­ployed since COVID and was near­ing 60, said in May that she bor­rowed mon­ey from her son to trav­el to work while wait­ing to be paid.

“I took $800 from him for one month to go to work,” she said. “We have moth­ers and grand­moth­ers bor­row­ing mon­ey to trav­el to work.”

Those com­plaints were made in May. John last week con­firmed that all 1,801 work­ers re­main em­ployed. Guardian Me­dia found no lat­er pub­lic min­istry state­ment con­firm­ing whether the four out­stand­ing

fort­nights or the miss­ing ex­ten­sion pa­per­work cit­ed by the work­ers were lat­er re­solved. The cur­rent sta­tus of those spe­cif­ic com­plaints could not be in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied.

A work­er in the sep­a­rate Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces, NPUPS, said that work had made a ma­jor dif­fer­ence af­ter a long pe­ri­od at home.

“At least it changed my life be­cause $2,300 a fort­night was bet­ter than noth­ing,” she said.

But she want­ed per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment and ben­e­fits.

“I would pre­fer that for in­stead of con­tract they make us per­ma­nent, so at least we could get some sick leave and hol­i­days and va­ca­tion and what­ev­er, be­cause some­times, you know, when you’re sick, you stay home and you’re not get­ting pay for it.”

Nunez-Tesheira said em­ploy­ment changes have al­so left Gov­ern­ment with a so­cial and eco­nom­ic prob­lem to an­swer. She ques­tioned whether ex­pand­ed so­cial pro­grammes and job train­ing are be­ing used to off­set the ef­fect of work­ers be­ing dis­placed from oth­er State pro­grammes.

The Gov­ern­ment’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Blue­print car­ries a much big­ger em­ploy­ment promise. In Sep­tem­ber, John said the ten-year plan was pro­ject­ed to gen­er­ate up to 72,000 jobs at peak roll­out.

James said the num­ber alone is not the test.

“The way you cre­ate sus­tain­able jobs on this scale, 72,000, is not par­tic­u­lar­ly huge, but nonethe­less, the way you do it is you di­ver­si­fy the struc­ture of the econ­o­my,” he said. “You cre­ate pro­duc­tiv­i­ty growth, you ex­ploit your dy­nam­ic ad­van­tages, both com­par­a­tive and in­no­v­a­tive ad­van­tages.”

He added: “You may get 72,000 jobs, but they will not be the high-in­come jobs that peo­ple are clam­or­ing for.”

Re­fer­ring to the re­or­gan­i­sa­tion of Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme, James called it “just an­oth­er kind of make-work pro­gramme un­der dif­fer­ent man­age­ment arrange­ments.”