PM defends ‘awesome’ 2027 Budget

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is de­scrib­ing the 2027 Bud­get as “awe­some” and in­sist­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies are de­signed to sup­port the coun­try’s most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens, stim­u­late eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and cre­ate jobs.

She is al­so dis­miss­ing Op­po­si­tion crit­i­cism of the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s plans.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed the pack­age, high­light­ing pro­vi­sions for vul­ner­a­ble groups, in­clud­ing se­nior cit­i­zens and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, along­side ini­tia­tives aimed at at­tract­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment.

“We are work­ing to re­bal­ance how we share the re­sources of the coun­try,” the Prime Min­is­ter said, adding that the Gov­ern­ment had tak­en care of some of the coun­try’s most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens through so­cial sec­tor pro­grammes, af­ter Tan­coo an­nounced a $250 in­crease in old-age pen­sions, dis­abil­i­ty and pub­lic as­sis­tance grants.

She said at­tract­ing for­eign in­vest­ment was al­so crit­i­cal to gen­er­at­ing rev­enue, stim­u­lat­ing the econ­o­my and cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The Prime Min­is­ter pushed back against crit­i­cism from for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning, who ar­gued that the bud­get lacked sub­stance and failed to pro­vide a con­vinc­ing plan for eco­nom­ic growth and job cre­ation.

Man­ning, who gave the bud­get a fail­ing grade, said he had ex­pect­ed greater de­tail on how the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to stim­u­late the econ­o­my and ad­dress un­em­ploy­ment.

“There’s just very lit­tle of that. There’s very lit­tle sub­stance at all in what we heard to­day,” Man­ning said.

He al­so ac­cused the Fi­nance Min­is­ter of show­ing con­tempt for Par­lia­ment and the pop­u­la­tion by de­liv­er­ing a lengthy bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion with­out pro­vid­ing suf­fi­cient de­tails on how the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­als would be im­ple­ment­ed.

Man­ning ques­tioned the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment’s hous­ing com­mit­ments, in­clud­ing its promise to de­liv­er 5,000 homes an­nu­al­ly, ar­gu­ing that the ad­min­is­tra­tion had not ad­e­quate­ly ex­plained how the homes would be fi­nanced or where they would be built.

He fur­ther blamed what he de­scribed as ex­ces­sive tax­es and fines im­posed by the Gov­ern­ment for plac­ing pres­sure on busi­ness­es and con­tribut­ing to un­em­ploy­ment.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s record, ar­gu­ing that Gov­ern­ment had al­ready de­liv­ered on sev­er­al com­mit­ments made dur­ing its first 18 months in of­fice.

“Promise made, promise kept, more to come,” she said, main­tain­ing that Gov­ern­ment’s track record would speak for it­self.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ad­dressed one of the coun­try’s most close­ly watched eco­nom­ic is­sues - the fu­ture of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery at Pointe-a-Pierre.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that work was con­tin­u­ing to­wards re­open­ing the fa­cil­i­ty, re­veal­ing that a com­mit­tee had been mak­ing progress and that the Gov­ern­ment had re­ceived sev­er­al ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est.

She said one pro­pos­al un­der con­sid­er­a­tion was a phased re­open­ing, rather than at­tempt­ing to re­store the en­tire re­fin­ery at once.

“We are work­ing on it. We have a com­mit­tee. They have come a long way,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged the re­fin­ery’s sig­nif­i­cance to com­mu­ni­ties in south Trinidad, de­scrib­ing the ex­tin­guish­ing of its flare as painful for res­i­dents who had long as­so­ci­at­ed it with the coun­try’s en­er­gy in­dus­try.

She al­so blamed the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion for the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure, in­sist­ing that the coun­try should not for­get who was re­spon­si­ble for end­ing its op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, Man­ning dis­missed the pro­posed phased re­open­ing as an­oth­er un­ful­filled promise, crit­i­cis­ing the Gov­ern­ment for fail­ing to pro­vide a time­line.

“A phased re­open­ing of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery mi­nus a time­line. An­oth­er fairy tale,” he said.

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed op­ti­mism about the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ments to work­ers, point­ing to al­lo­ca­tions out­lined by Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste and ini­tia­tives in­tend­ed to ad­dress work­ers’ con­cerns.

“I think we have demon­strat­ed that we keep our promis­es. In many re­spects, I am very ex­cit­ed and hap­py about the promis­es made in terms of work­ers, with our work­ers’ agen­da, some of the monies we have put in to sat­is­fy… We can­not do every­thing, but it’s some good, good news for the work­ers of this coun­try, the PSA, NUGFW and many oth­ers. So I say it (the bud­get) was awe­some.”