PM: Former govt splurged $114M on OPM luxuries

Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

and Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion of spend­ing $114 mil­lion on en­ter­tain­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter’s house­hold ex­pens­es and con­fer­ences over ten years, vow­ing that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) will no longer be used as a “slush fund for the lav­ish lifestyles of those who treat­ed them­selves as em­per­ors.”

It came yes­ter­day be­fore Bud­get 2027 was passed in the Low­er House with­out sup­port from the Op­po­si­tion, whose mem­bers had ear­li­er opt­ed to “boy­cott” ques­tion­ing the Prime Min­is­ter when she ap­peared be­fore the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee to be ques­tioned on spend­ing for OPM.

The bud­get was passed with 28 votes for, 12 against and no ab­sten­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her open­ing state­ment at the SFC, said the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter will no longer be used as a “slush fund for the lav­ish lifestyles of those who treat­ed them­selves as em­per­ors.”

She told the com­mit­tee that the OPM came be­fore them as the main dri­ver of na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, be­fore de­tail­ing ex­pen­di­ture un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

She said be­tween 2016 and 2025, the OPM spent $19.2 mil­lion on of­fi­cial en­ter­tain­ment.

“From 2016 to 2025, while thou­sands lost their jobs, the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter spent $80.5 mil­lion on the Prime Min­is­ter’s es­tab­lish­ment, sim­ply put, ex­pens­es for the Prime Min­is­ter’s house­hold, not for the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, but for the house­hold,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She said un­der the same pe­ri­od, the OPM spent $14.7 mil­lion on host­ing con­fer­ences and sem­i­nars.

“In to­tal, over the last ten years, the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter spent $114 mil­lion on fine din­ing, va­ca­tions, fine wine, sight­see­ing, and splurg­ing as our na­tion suf­fered. Those days are over,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, as Gov­ern­ment MPs thumped their desks.

She said in her first year in of­fice, her Gov­ern­ment slashed spend­ing at the OPM from $1.2 bil­lion in fis­cal 2025 to $465 mil­lion in fis­cal 2026.

In fis­cal 2027, the al­lo­ca­tion, in­clu­sive of the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme, is $462.7 mil­lion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the OPM’s re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture in­creased by $26 mil­lion to sup­port high­er salaries for work­ers.

Af­ter her in­tro­duc­tion, the com­mit­tee’s chair­man, Speak­er Jagdeo Singh, read out the heads of ex­pen­di­ture so that Op­po­si­tion MPs could ask ques­tions on the al­lo­ca­tions.

How­ev­er, no Op­po­si­tion MP asked any ques­tions and the al­lo­ca­tion for the OPM.

When asked, Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip in the House Mar­vin Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia that they de­cid­ed to “boy­cott” the PM and they were not go­ing to en­ter­tain what he de­scribed as a “PR stunt” from Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Mean­while, the Op­po­si­tion said it vot­ed against the 2027 Bud­get be­cause the Gov­ern­ment failed to present a cred­i­ble plan for eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, ad­dress job loss­es or ac­count for promis­es made in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year. In a state­ment is­sued af­ter the vote, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) al­so ac­cused the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion of im­pos­ing fur­ther hard­ship on fam­i­lies, in­creas­ing bor­row­ing and dis­crim­i­nat­ing against com­mu­ni­ties rep­re­sent­ed by PNM-led mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions.

“The Op­po­si­tion could not sup­port a Bud­get that asks cit­i­zens to ac­cept more hard­ship, more bor­row­ing and more promis­es while the Gov­ern­ment re­fus­es to ac­count for its fail­ures,” the state­ment said.

The Op­po­si­tion claimed its as­sess­ment showed that more than 90 per cent of the Gov­ern­ment’s promis­es from the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year re­mained un­ful­filled. How­ev­er, the state­ment did not pro­vide a break­down of those promis­es or ex­plain how that fig­ure was cal­cu­lat­ed.

It ac­cused Gov­ern­ment mem­bers of us­ing per­son­al at­tacks and dis­trac­tions dur­ing the par­lia­men­tary de­bate in­stead of re­port­ing on the de­liv­ery of projects.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so ques­tioned the state of the pub­lic fi­nances, claim­ing that a deficit ini­tial­ly pro­ject­ed at $3 bil­lion had ex­ceed­ed $7 bil­lion by Ju­ly.

“The coun­try de­serves an hon­est ex­pla­na­tion for this de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the pub­lic fi­nances,” it said, adding that it ex­pect­ed the deficit to rise fur­ther.

On em­ploy­ment, the Op­po­si­tion al­leged that more than 60,000 peo­ple had lost their jobs un­der the UNC Gov­ern­ment and ar­gued that the Bud­get of­fered no cred­i­ble pro­gramme to re­store liveli­hoods or gen­er­ate sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment. The state­ment did not iden­ti­fy the source of that fig­ure.

Turn­ing to To­ba­go, the Op­po­si­tion ar­gued that re­duced fund­ing for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly would threat­en ser­vices and de­vel­op­ment.

It fur­ther ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of deny­ing PNM-led mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions the re­sources re­quired for road re­pairs, drainage main­te­nance, garbage col­lec­tion and the up­keep of pub­lic spaces.

It said its vote rep­re­sent­ed work­ers, strug­gling fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties seek­ing fair treat­ment, and pledged to con­tin­ue press­ing the Gov­ern­ment for ac­count­abil­i­ty and an eco­nom­ic plan that de­liv­ers jobs and op­por­tu­ni­ty.