By Sue-Ann Wayow
THE budgeted gas price is reasonable.
AMCHAM T&T in a statement on Monday evening said that it was clear that Minister of Finance Colm Imbert attempted to balance several considerations in the 2023 Budget that he laid in Parliament earlier.
The Budget is pegged on an oil price of US$92.50 per barrel and natural gas price of US$6 per MMBtu.
“We also think it prudent that an attempt is being made to contain expenditure. In our opinion, the budgeted gas price is reasonable in the current climate,” AMCHAM T&T stated.
The reductions in the tax rates designed to stimulate upstream oil and gas production were welcomed. In addition, the reduction in taxes for FinTechs and the Financial Services hub were laudable initiatives.
AMCHAM T&T is also looking forward to the operationalization of the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) legislation as a means of encouraging additional investment.
“We eagerly await the rollout of the Developers’ Hub and applaud the effort to develop software as a service for the Government sector. This software also has the potential to be exported and the Hub could incubate smaller technology companies. The identification of specific initiatives to support the transition to a cashless society and to remove the friction of transacting business with the Government are also likely to have a positive impact,” AMCHAM T&T stated.
Listing other measures announced by Imbert that the Chamber was satisfied with, AMCHAM T&T said that the move towards implementing a renewable energy policy was a positive one.
AMCHAM T&T stated, “We believe this would not only reduce demands for the scarce natural gas to generate electricity, but the renewable energy policy would assist us in reaching our Paris agreement targets. We would like to hear concrete timelines for these during the budget debate.”
Disappointment
However, the Chamber is disappointed by the lack of broad transformative initiatives.
“We expected the Minister to report on the outcomes of previous announcements and give clearer timelines for the implementation of new and repeated announcements such as the data interoperability framework, open data implementation and unique national identifier. We hope that there will be more specific announcements by line Ministers during the debate,” the release stated.
The Chamber said that the outlook for increased production in the energy sector in the short term was still uncertain and the stabilisation of the economy remained precarious.
Cross-cutting measures to improve the ease of doing business also required further articulation.
“In particular, we are disappointed that there was no emphasis on customs reform and digitisation of the trade facilitation process,” AMCHAM T&T stated.
My view on Gas prices and heavy traffic on the roads all have to do with the people of this country stopping the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) from going forward.
Now we are all stuck with having to purchase our own vehicles to get to/from work, drop our children to school,!going for a line and visiting our friends and family.
So we have only ourselves to blame for this. In most developed countries with a Transit System, you would see people using this form of travel to get around during the week and would leave their vehicles at home.