By Chantalé Fletcher
“YOU cannot tax a nation into prosperity.”
This according to Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, during a debate at the House of Representatives on Friday.
She was responding to Minister of Finance Colm Imbert made his mid-year budget review in the Lower House on Friday.
Imbert started off with a breakdown of the Supplementary Appropriation for fiscal 2024 which initially amounted to $2.32 billion but was reduced to $2.3 billion.
He said, “In arriving at this place the Ministry of Finance examined the requests from various ministries which were deemed to be inescapable expenditure and implementations for the last six weeks.
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“Bearing in mind our revenue situation, we have reduced the amount of supplementation to 2.3 billion.”
Below is a breakdown of the new supplementation costs which amounted to $2.3 billion:
- Service Commission: $4.41 million
- Tobago House of Assembly: $50 million
- Office of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs: $124 million
- Ministry of Education: $144 million
- Ministry of Health:$495 million
- Ministry of Labour:$130 million
- Ministry of Public Utilities:$527 million
- Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries:$570 million
- Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government: $95 million
- Ministry of Works and Transport: $155 million
- Ministry of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs: $9 million
- Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Arts: $21 million
However, Persad-Bissessar described Imbert’s request for more money “as a story of woe” referring to the state of the economy.
She said, “You have increased the borrowing in the country from the Central Government Debt as of 2023 at $137 billion, and when we left it was at $76.5 billion.”
Persad-Bissessar said that the government increased the borrowing limit under the Development Loans Act from $30 billion to $45 billion in December 2015.
She said other increases as they sat in governance, under the same Development Loans Act, “$45 billion to $55 billion in March 2020 and $55 billion to $60 billion in March 2021. The External Loans Act from $15 billion to $30 billion also in December 2015.”
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Persad-Bissessar said, “It is clear evidence they have not been able to create a single new revenue. They living on tax, tax, tax, borrow, borrow, borrow.”
She said that the majority of the expenditure for the $2.3 billion was re-current which would leave “nothing for development.”
Persad-Bissessar added, “The government was borrowing to pay bills from last year and year before. It would have been normal expenditure however… placed less expenditure in the budget when he knew he had all these people to pay working on contract, short term, WASA.”
She accused Imbert of not revealing the government’s true intention.
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Persad-Bissessar said, “The Government is bankrupt. There is no question about it. They have mismanaged the economy.”
Meanwhile, she received full support from her colleagues who are contesting the UNC national executive election on a slate that she is not supporting, including MP for Naparima Rodney Charles who remained next to her on the Opposition bench despite her call for Charles to be removed.
