TANCOO TO DELIVER ON JOBS

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

While some cit­i­zens took the pre­cau­tion of top­ping up their gas tanks yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials say no fu­el price hike is ex­pect­ed in to­day’s 2027 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

Of­fi­cials al­so said the Bud­get pack­age to take Trinidad and To­ba­go through the 2027 fis­cal year would be larg­er than the $59.232 bil­lion al­lo­cat­ed in the 2026 Bud­get. The 2027 Bud­get is es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $63 bil­lion.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo will present the 2027 Bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at 1.30 pm to­day. It will be his sec­ond Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion on be­half of the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said the Bud­get would con­tin­ue the “eco­nom­ic and so­cial tran­si­tion” which the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) be­gan in 2025.

How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has brand­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s promis­es and state­ments on the Bud­get as lies. The par­ty ex­pects Trinidad and To­ba­go to con­tin­ue suf­fer­ing in 2027, de­spite the Prime Min­is­ter’s pre­dic­tion of “brighter days” in the Bud­get.

In Au­gust, Tan­coo said the 2027 Bud­get would con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise im­prov­ing cit­i­zens’ lives and liveli­hoods, as well as their stan­dard of liv­ing, de­spite the coun­try’s dif­fi­cult rev­enue con­di­tions.

He said, “I as­sure you, we’re go­ing to con­tin­ue in the same way we con­tributed in my first bud­get, which we fo­cused at­ten­tion on im­prov­ing the qual­i­ty of life and sta­bil­i­ty of peo­ple, de­spite our con­straints.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Tan­coo of­fered no de­tails about his 2027 pack­age, say­ing on­ly, “The Op­po­si­tion PNM will ab­solute­ly hate this bud­get - they’ve proven them­selves un­pa­tri­ot­ic haters. Whether an­ti-crime mea­sures or homes for cit­i­zens, PNM’s pol­i­cy has been to op­pose every mea­sure to im­prove the lives of our peo­ple; they want our coun­try to col­lapse and cit­i­zens to suf­fer.”

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine will be among the guests in Par­lia­ment to­day to wit­ness the Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.

For the 2027 fis­cal year, the THA is seek­ing $4.12 bil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing 6.6 per cent of the pro­ject­ed na­tion­al Bud­get, and more than it re­ceived for the 2026 fis­cal year.

In 2026, the THA re­ceived $3.724 bil­lion, or 6.3 per cent of that year’s Bud­get.

Among the ar­eas ex­pect­ed to fea­ture in to­day’s an­nounce­ment are pay­ments, in­vest­ment, im­proved al­lowances and tax col­lec­tion, job cre­ation and en­er­gy sec­tor plans.

At Tan­coo’s Bud­get con­sul­ta­tion in his con­stituen­cy in Au­gust, at­ten­dees called for jobs, busi­ness and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, eco­tourism de­vel­op­ment and im­prove­ments to wa­ter sup­ply. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said last week that some re­lief in these ar­eas was ex­pect­ed in the Bud­get.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so promised “thou­sands of jobs and bil­lions in in­vest­ment”.

To­day’s an­nounce­ment is ex­pect­ed to in­clude bil­lions of dol­lars in pay­ments to­wards ar­rears owed to pub­lic ser­vants. Tan­coo said dur­ing the year that this would be in­clud­ed in the 2027 Bud­get.

Among oth­er mea­sures, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said an in­crease in the per­son­al tax al­lowance and an in­crease in the stamp du­ty al­lowance would be an­nounced.

Plans for the en­er­gy sec­tor are al­so ex­pect­ed, in­clud­ing ini­tia­tives in­volv­ing for­eign com­pa­nies and de­vel­op­ments con­cern­ing cross-bor­der re­serves. A sta­tus re­port on the Guaracara re­fin­ery is al­so an­tic­i­pat­ed.

The Gov­ern­ment is al­so ex­pect­ed to out­line mea­sures to en­hance rev­enue through a tighter tax col­lec­tion and com­pli­ance sys­tem tar­get­ing tax eva­sion by in­di­vid­u­als and cor­po­ra­tions.

De­tails of busi­ness in­vest­ment un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Plan are al­so ex­pect­ed.

An­oth­er pri­or­i­ty in the 2027 Bud­get will be the Gov­ern­ment’s hous­ing dri­ve and plans for the con­struc­tion sec­tor.

Fol­low­ing to­day’s pre­sen­ta­tion, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les will de­liv­er her Bud­get re­ply on Fri­day morn­ing.

The re­ply forms part of the usu­al process of ex­am­in­ing the Bud­get, which must be im­ple­ment­ed by the end of this month, when the 2027 fis­cal year be­gins.

Once de­bate con­cludes in the House next week, the sec­ond phase will in­volve Op­po­si­tion cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of min­is­ters on spend­ing, the use and man­age­ment of funds, and items con­tained in Bud­get re­ports on re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, rev­enue and Pub­lic Sec­tor Im­prove­ment Plans.

In the fi­nal phase, the Sen­ate will de­bate the Bud­get.

FLASH­BACK -THE 2026 BUD­GET

• Bud­get Theme “ TT First: Build­ing Eco­nom­ic Fair­ness through ac­count­able fis­cal poli­cies.”

• To­tal Ex­pen­di­ture of $59.232B.

• To­tal Rev­enue - $55.367B.

• Fis­cal deficit - $3.865B.

• Oil Rev­enue- $11.254B.

• Non oil rev­enue- $43.402B

• June Mid year re­view showed changes in Bud­get pro­jec­tions.

• Based on oil price of (US)$73.25 per bar­rel (less than the 2025 ba­sis of US 77.80) and gas price of (US)$4.25 per MMB­tu (more than the 2025 ba­sis of US $3.59)

• Among the nine Min­istries with the largest al­lo­ca­tion Ed­u­ca­tion/Train­ing got top dol­lars- $8.766 B

• To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly re­ceived $3.724B - 6.3 per­cent of the pack­age then.

• 24 Fis­cal in­cen­tives rang­ing from levy on bank and in­sur­ance com­pa­ny as­sets, to tax ex­emp­tion on pri­vate pen­sions