Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo says the current administration has been forced to supplement the former government’s budget, calling it the “latest chapter in the PNM’s long history of serial under-budgeting.”
Minister Tancoo said the mid-year package presented in the House on Wednesday “is the clean-up bill” and the new administration has no choice but to “clean up the mess left behind.”
“Today, the government is compelled to seek an additional $3,143,983,761 in supplementary funding, not because of unforeseen crises, but because the former government intentionally under-budgeted for critical expenditure, knowing fully well that the bills will come due.”
Painting a picture of the current state of the economy, Minister Tancoo did not hold back: “Mr. Speaker, the last 10 years of PNM rule has been a decade of debt, D-E-B-T, death, D-E-A-T-H, and destruction for all of Trinidad and Tobago, except for the friends, family and finances of the PNM. They spent a decade blaming Kamla.”
He pointed to a 20% contraction in the economy since 2015, 48,000 jobs lost, and a 50% drop in net foreign exchange reserves.
“Net foreign exchange holdings have dropped by 50% under the PNM from 10.5 US billion to 5.3 US billion today. Today, Mr. Speaker, Trinidad and Tobago has a mere 7.5 months of import cover. We have foreign exchange to only last this country seven and a half months of imports.”
The Finance Minister also turned to issues regarding tax evasion: “For the last decade, the PNM deliberately sabotaged the Board of Inland Revenue, refusing to provide resources so that this country, this BIR, could pursue tax evaders effectively, Mr. Speaker, allowing big businesses to pocket $10 billion illegally every year.”
The Finance Minister made mention of the value of half this country’s annual budget being “unverified” in the Auditor General’s Report.
“You will find over $30 billion in expenditure that was unverified, could not be allocated, were not presented for audit, or were not placed in the vote books in 2024. $30 billion – that’s half of the annual expenditure of this country, Mr. Speaker. That is alarming. And that is why they were so intent on not releasing the Auditor General’s report, Mr. Speaker.”
The Finance Minister also pegged the oil price at US$66 per barrel and US$5 per mmbtu.
“The 2025 budget was predicated on an average oil price of $77.80 US per barrel and a natural gas price of US$3.59 per MMBtu. Our estimation for oil and gas prices to the end of fiscal year 2025 is US$66 per barrel and US$5 per MMBtu. With this and other adjustments, we anticipate a decrease in total revenue of $556.7 billion with an overall resultant on fiscal deficit for 2025 of $9.67 billion.”