Budget Review 2018 – Kamla: The T&T economy has been brutalized and battered by this Administration
I realized that despite the Minister of Finance’s promise in his Budget statement 2018 that he would be “Changing the paradigm: Putting the economy on a sustainable path” that there is no changing of the paradigm nor putting the economy on a sustainable path but more of the same old, same old paradigm and no sustainable path for the economy.
Having undermined and destroyed the economic fundamentals in less than three full years they now choose to pull the plug on the development Programme (IDF).
The doddering Minister of Finance unable to chart an economic course forward has taken a decision to raid or deplete the development budget to finance recurrent expenditure.
This is a colossal testimony to his failure to generate sufficient revenues after a myriad of taxes flung on the poor and underprivileged.
PROCUREMENT
In the area of procurement of goods and services this government approach has been deplorable.
They have thrown away the handbook on good governance and proper procurement. They have shelved procurement policy.
HOUSING
In the past six months the Prime Minister has been playing musical chairs in the Cabinet room.
In fact they have not built a single housing unit in three years. Thank god my administration left many estates in a state of readiness to compete so that they can now distribute to friends and family and family of friends.
I call on the government to cease this callous policy of evicting persons who are fully paid up to the HDC. If those renters cannot for any reason convert their rent to own to a mortgage arrangement, they must be allowed to continue in occupation as faithful renters.
BROKEN PROMISES
If you look over every sector, every promise, from their manifesto come down to their repeated budget promises looking for one thing they have delivered on, except more taxes, you will find nothing!!!
The only movement citizens feel is a movement to more hardship.
The nation feels it, the citizens feel the weight of the incompetence of this Administration.
And after spending more than 110 billion dollars with very little tangible that we can see, people are beginning to understand the very real consequences of electing a Party without a plan to govern the country.
PNM PROMISES
In this mid-year review at their mid-term mark the Keith Rowley administration has failed to deliver on a single one of their promised big ticket projects.
Promise after promise with nothing to show for it, but yet still spending billions…total incompetence.
The Minister came here today, to continue their proven false narrative and to make even more promises that there will be no delivery on.
So we are being asked to review another bankrupt and barren budget.
STATE OF THE ECONOMY
The crashed economy under the PNM
Trinidad & Tobago’s energy-based economy contracted for the second consecutive year in 2017, despite a pickup in natural gas production.
The Government, will now benefit from additional revenue from natural gas production as a result of the work done by my Government
The mismanagement of State owned Petrotrin lies squarely at the feet of this PNM Government, as they have facilitated the corrupt practices that pervades over the once prosperous refinery.
Information on retrenchment from the Ministry of Labour indicate some 2,421 persons were retrenched between 2016-2017. Retrenchment occurred across all sectors, particularly energy, finance and manufacturing.
FOREX
There is also the forex issue where access or lack of access has crippled the private sector.
The Central Bank has depreciated the TT dollar by 6.5 percent against the US dollar since September 2015, but this has done little to alleviate chronic foreign exchange shortages.
It is clear that the policy of the Government is in “big people” and “big businesses” as those have been able to access Forex.
PUBLIC DEBT
The issue of the rapid growth in the borrowings by this Minister remains cause for alarm. The Auditor General’s Report 2017 revealed the shocking news that in the last two years alone, Government borrowings have totalled $24.4 billion dollars. This two year total is 1.3 times higher than the total borrowings during my five years in office.
T&T is at a dangerous point as beyond 60% Debt to GDP, with low revenue prospects any further shock to the economy may result in debt levels that are so high that the state may have to default at worst or restructuring at best.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES
Trinidad and Tobago’s external position continues to worsen.
The so-called recovery comes against the backdrop of collapsing foreign reserves.
The country continues to suffer as a result of the Government’s inability to initiate a single new revenue generation project and in particular any enterprise designed to generate the much needed foreign exchange.
Moody’s and Standards & Poor’s (S&P) each downgraded Trinidad and Tobago sovereign credit rating.
Moody’s downgrade was to a sub-investment grade (JUNK) rating of Ba1 while S&P’s rating is still an investment grade of BBB+.
The downgrades were triggered by:
- an insufficient policy response by the Rowley PNM Government to offset the impact of low energy prices on government revenues;
- a steady increase in public debt; and
- Declining energy production, coupled with limited energy investment prospects.
The Moody’s rating carries a stable outlook, while S&P’s carries a negative outlook.
STATE OF THE ECONOMY
The Blame Game
From their very first day in office, Ministers in the Rowley Government have been chanting the Public Relations slogan that the Opposition is to be blamed for the PNM’s inability to govern.
It was their thesis in every budget presented and in endless hours of misinformation in the public domain.
OVERDRAFT
The Minister of Finance made a lot of noise about my Government maxing out the overdraft facility at Central Bank. Madam Speaker, I remind this House that in December 2017, this same Minister of Finance who chastised my Government for utilizing the overdraft facility came to this house to increase the overdraft from 15% to 20%.
The Minister stated that he increased borrowing on the overdraft to meet these expenses. The Government has to increase it borrowings due to a drop in its revenue, this clearly demonstrates the ineptitude, incompetence and inability of the Minister of Finance to diversify the economy to increase revenue flow. They have not generated a single new stream of income so all they can do is borrow to service debt.
GOVERNMENT REVENUE
In our first year in office, the total revenue earned by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago was $47.519 billion. (Report of the Auditor General 2015, page 129)
Do you know what the revenue received by the PNM in its first year in office? According to the Report of the Auditor General 2017, page 106, the PNM Government earned $60.3 billion in FY 2016, its first year in office.
Does that sound like a country that was bankrupt? In their first year in office the PNM collected $12.8 billion dollars more than my Government – thanks to the policies my government put in place.
While screaming that the country was in crisis and collapsing, the fact is that the PNM has received over three quarters of a billion dollars more than we got when we were in Government, over the same time frame.
The economy in 2015 was not in crisis. Far from it. Employment was high and growing, business confidence was up, investments were coming in, crime was falling, revenue generation projects were in the works…
But that wasn’t by accident. That was as a result of vision, long term planning and prudent fiscal and financial management and conscientious implementation. The fact is that during our 5 year period the country experienced the largest increase in output and employment in its history.
EXPENDITURE
In our first three years we spent $169.37 billion dollars an average of $56.45 bn per year and you can see where we spent it on! Every where! Roads, Schools, bridges, hospitals, houses, drains, social projects, GATE, laptops, sporting complexes, hotel development ……
The cumulative expenditure of PNM in its 3 years will be $162.17 billion, an average of $54.1 billion per year.
What do you have to show for it?
What new projects?
What can you point to and say this is being built by the PNM without controversy and corruption?
The Government is spending virtually the same amount of money per annum that we spent in our first three years in office, but on who…and on what?
Today I echo the cry made famous by another PNM member with respect to the member for Diego Martin West: where the money gone?
How can you be spending the same amount but you cut GATE, you cut employment, you cut laptops, you cut baby grant, you cut ……… but while you cut all the social safety net, all the benefits to the average citizens, you spent the same amount.
DEFICIT
This waste, corruption and mismanagement is reflected in the Ministers repeated failure in controlling the deficit.
The PNM has Budget deficits from 2016 to 2018 rising every year from $7.36 billion to $9.78 billion and at $10.13 billion initially projected for 2018.
PNM AT MID-TERM – A FAILING GRADE
I have previously argued that growth without development is unsustainable.
It is his (Rowley) Minister who was taxing citizens to their limits because they haven’t rioted yet. It is this same PM when a nation was concerned about violence against women blamed the victims.
It is his government who destroyed the sea bridge and when Tobagonians were suffering for food shamelessly boasted that they were still able to get almond milk.
Same PM who presided over the removal of support for children with autism, and who refused to open the Couva Children’s hospital. And I can go on.
This is the most callous, malicious spiteful anti people government in the history of the country.
Mr Imbert’s enthusiasm to announce that the country has “turned the corner” has been rejected by economists and analysts throughout the country.
It is not premised on structural or sectoral reforms and there is no evidence of comparative growth in the non-oil sector.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD FOCUS ON
Children’s Life Fund Act review
Madam Speaker what matters most to us is our children.
Like many mothers in our nation, my heart bleeds, I am pained whenever I read or see the stories about parents having to beg for help to save the lives of their critically ill children.
WHAT TO DO?
But all is not lost…there’s hope.
Our economy can be fixed. We can regain fiscal balance, stabilize public debt, stop the bleeding of official reserves, and bring our economy back onto a growth trajectory.
The first critical step is to restore confidence and rebuild trust. This means the Government must come up with a credible medium-term economic plan, communicate the milestones of that plan, and act decisively in implementing the plan.
It also means the Government must stop imposing a plethora of taxes on citizens.
Lower taxes.
Cease and desist on property tax.
The Government must also cease and desist from trying to secretly depreciate the TT dollar
CRIME
I look around the country I live in, the country where crime reigns and the Government is so clueless, its leader now resorts to attacking foreign Governments when they do their duty to their citizens and warn them against coming here, for fear of their safety.
We now live in a country where our Prime Minister, instead of tackling the crime problem, when he cannot blame Kamla, he now blames foreign Governments, foreign Heads of States, and foreign global institutions like the United Nations, for simply doing their duty and doing their jobs.
JOBLESSNESS
People are losing jobs, despair has set in and citizens have nowhere to turn. Nowhere.
Every single sector and system is in crisis—health, education; public utilities, transportation, the sea bridge, tourism—none is working. Not one!
Every week at least, the editorials of the newspapers now come out warning either the Attorney General, or Acting Attorney General against their conscientious and deliberate efforts to undermine the rule of law with their deliberate political interference in a variety of issues.
The legislative arm of the State is being eroded and destroyed as well…you are attacking our democracy in every possible way.
Why are you seeking to punish them and destroy the population’s sense of security, well-being, self-esteem and self-worth?
What did the people of Trinidad and Tobago do to you to make you make what is obviously a conscious, deliberate decision to destroy every single aspect of their living, their lifestyles and their livelihood?
Well I say to you today, nobody trusts you.
You are fooling no one, I daresay, not even yourselves with your crocodile tears and self-apologizing policies aimed at cheap electioneering because you are finally waking up to acknowledge that, in this new global era of people standing up to longstanding abusers and tyrants—the citizens of this country have this to say to the most destructive, abusive, incompetent and corrupt Government: Your time is up.
Conclusion
The Trinidad and Tobago economy has been brutalized and battered by this Administration. Their incompetence has led to a country in crisis:
Our economy has crashed
Health care crashed
Education sector crashed
Crime is out of control
Our roads are in a state of disrepair
It pains me Madame Speaker, to look at what they have done in just two and a half years.
It pains me to know that citizens who work hard to provide for their families, who work hard to build their homes, to educate their children, the people who build this country and make this country run are the ones who are suffering the most.
These people Madame Speaker and the ones being punished by this Government.
These people are literally paying, every year with new and increased taxes, for the incompetence of this Government.
If taxation is their only plan for revenue generation, Madame Speaker, then we on this side stand here correct, when we say and have been saying, THEY HAVE NO PLAN.
If the only way they know how to raise money is to take the money that the citizens have worked for and earned, then they are incompetent managers and should be fired.
Madame Speaker, all this song and dance and dramatic storytelling by the Minister of Finance, will not change the fact that every time he comes here citizens are fearful, what new punishment tax is he coming with…
Punishing us with taxes and then telling us it is patriotic…
The PNM’s developmental philosophy is that increased taxation will bring growth
This will not lead to development, it will only create more hardship.
Madame Speaker growth will come when we invest in our people, when we see our people as our most precious and valuable resource and we nurture and encourage their ingenuity.
Growth and Development will come when the United National Congress returns to govern this country.
It pains me Madame Speaker, to look at what they have done in just two and a half years.
A disingenuous act of deceit, plain old election engineering…
Spending recklessly now will not cover your incompetence…
We are not a nation with Stockholm syndrome…
We see you for what you are and what you have done to sweet Trinidad and Tobago and the people are saying your time is up…
Never again for the PNM…
People have election countdowns up like they would have Christmas and Carnival countdowns.
They cannot wait to see you go because of all the damage you have done…
Growth and Development will come when the United National Congress returns to govern this country.
Opposition Response to the Mid-year Budget Review 2017- 2018