Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is greeted by protesters before entering the Red House to listen to the 2024/2025 Budget on Monday. Photo: Facebook/UNC
OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar describes the 2024/2025 fiscal package delivered by Finance Minister Colm Imbert as a Christopher Columbus budget.
She said, “All of this is like a Columbus budget, you come to promise trinkets and mirrors and smoke whilst people are suffering in the country. It’s an election budget, there’s no question about it.”
Speaking at a press conference in the Red House minutes after Imbert’s five hours presentation, Persad-Bissessar accused the People’s National Movement (PNM) administration of misleading the public with empty promises.
She dismissed the budget as appealing only to “pseudo-intellectuals and PNM sycophants.”
Persad-Bissessar said, “This government couldn’t improvement the country after spending over $500 billion for the past nine years, only fools, eat ah food fake elites, pseudo intellectuals and PNM true believers will think this additional almost $60 billion will create any improvement.”
On government’s proposal to raise the minimum wage for public sector workers to $22.50 per hour, Persad-Bissessar argued that this increase is insufficient to support families, stating adding, “It sounds good on paper… but $16 more a day cannot buy a loaf of bread.”
She also expressed skepticism about the feasibility of proposed infrastructure projects, citing repeated unfulfilled promises such as the San Fernando to Mayaro freeway and a new ferry port in Toco. “These people does lie, cry and mamaguy, and some people believe them,” she said.
Imbert had announced a backpay increase offer for public sector workers from four to five percent for 2020 to 2022, alongside the minimum wage hike. The changes affect over 83,000 public sector workers, including those in the Public Service, Statutory Authorities, the Tobago House of Assembly, and Municipal Corporations.
