‘Tight’ Budget limits, no T&TEC hike in 2025, refinery decision

Who­ev­er is out­side of the Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, sea­soned Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert knows that what­ev­er Bud­get he presents then, he’ll be crit­i­cised and called out, as well as com­mend­ed.

Whichev­er pre­vails will be known af­ter Im­bert’s sev­er­al-hour pre­sen­ta­tion of his most im­por­tant Bud­get for Gov­ern­ment’s last nine years. It’s a piv­otal 2024-2025 make-or-break pack­age be­yond elec­tion year con­sid­er­a­tion.

Im­bert’s slight frame has borne the brunt of bur­den-shap­ing and re­tool­ing T&T’s fi­nan­cial man­age­ment through crises that hit Gov­ern­ment from start to fin­ish, bud­gets re­flect­ing Gov­ern­ment’s chal­lenges, plus re­solve. Themes from 2016/19 evolved from growth, change to turn­around. Just at the lat­ter point, how­ev­er, pan­dem­ic/post years switched to the need for sta­bil­i­ty, strength, growth re­silience, tenac­i­ty and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing. A tough road which cit­i­zens have com­mend­ably tread even amid a crime as­sault.

In an elec­tion year where Gov­ern­ment’s main chal­lenge is crime’s ef­fects, Im­bert’s Bud­get must re­set T&T and Gov­ern­ment’s foot­ing for its cam­paign—which at the depth of se­cu­ri­ty prob­lems—can­not bank on blam­ing Op­po­si­tion in­frac­tions.

In­ci­dents with­in hos­pi­tal com­pounds, PNM con­stituen­cies, out­side kinder­gartens and schools aren’t the on­ly con­fir­ma­tions of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s Re­pub­lic Day lament about T&T’s “dark side.” Or Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s ob­ser­va­tion about peo­ple’s pull­back from pub­lic ser­vice.

As Gov­ern­ment’s last, pre-elec­tion, there’s ex­tra pres­sure on the Bud­get, in­clud­ing to en­sure a “crunch” doesn’t come af­ter 2025. The supreme test of Im­bert’s abil­i­ty is pro­vid­ing for that pres­sure and ex­pec­tant pub­lic with­in the con­fines of a bleak land­scape, which will be re­quired to pro­duce rev­enue bet­ter than 2024.

Wit­ness yes­ter­day’s oil price (US$67/71) and gas (US$2), much low­er than the 2024 Bud­get ba­sis (US$85) and (US$5). Wan­ing en­er­gy stocks, Drag­on Gas un­cer­tain­ty pend­ing US elec­tion out­come, the need to cut sub­si­dies/trans­fers and boost lo­cal rev­enue streams.

De­mands ex­ceed maxi dri­vers claim­ing $4mil­lion, PSA’s pend­ing sec­ond round of ne­go­ti­a­tions, oth­er in­com­plete is­sues. Bud­get suc­cess may bank on the new mech­a­nism to gauge en­er­gy prices, new pre­sen­ta­tion mode and re­al­is­ti­cal­ly root­ed com­mit­ments and plans.

What­ev­er is de­liv­ered will dic­tate the elec­tion’s pace. And ex­pen­di­ture size will re­veal T&T’s chal­lenges and ex­tent of free­dom.

Amid un­known en­er­gy rev­enue plus elec­tion chal­lenge, whether T&T and Gov­ern­ment’s de­mands re­quire a $60B-plus pack­age—sim­i­lar to the first 2016 Bud­get ($63B), its largest, when fund­ing was re­quired to meet past oblig­a­tions—PNM sources es­ti­mate lev­els could re­main around the ball­park mar­gin of the cur­rent $59B pack­age or just over, once there’s a more re­al­is­tic en­er­gy ba­sis.

While un­like­ly to be in the low $50B lev­el of 2017/2022, they cit­ed deficit fi­nanc­ing risk with high fig­ures, not­ing pro­ject­ed ex­pen­di­ture would de­pend on 2025 pro­ject­ed rev­enue from as­sort­ed sec­tors.

Pub­lic in­ter­est in the cur­rent “live” area of prop­er­ty tax is ob­vi­ous­ly with ex­pec­ta­tion the tax re­mains at the two per cent lev­el “hook.” Elec­tion land­scape will nat­u­ral­ly seek a com­mit­ment that it won’t be in­creased fur­ther.

Flavour­ing’s al­so ex­pect­ed in the (con­firmed) fact that T&TEC’s rate hike won’t be in 2025. It’s a giv­en in elec­tion year but will raise queries about af­ter.

With a Petrotrin re­fin­ery in­vestor de­ci­sion “very close”—af­ter dis­cus­sions with in­vestors in Au­gust—it’s un­der­stood cer­tain groups have been short­list­ed. Bid­ders in­clud­ed OW­TU’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies, whose of­fer has dif­fered to their pre­vi­ous (re­ject­ed) bid.

Apart from what the Bud­get telegraphs to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly—which re­quest­ed $4B—Gov­ern­ment’s To­ba­go voice has been in­creased in the Sen­ate by To­ba­go leader An­cil Den­nis re­plac­ing Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, who re­signed. Her side of cer­tain per­son­al is­sues is yet to arise. Den­nis, who was among de­feat­ed PN­MItes in the 2021 THA polls, ar­rives in time to par­tic­i­pate in the up­com­ing con­clu­sion of the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills, key to elec­tion cam­paign­ing.

While the Bud­get will re­flect Gov­ern­ment’s com­pe­ten­cy, in­clud­ing for fu­ture ad­min­is­tra­tion, so too will Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ply on Fri­day pre­view UNC’s ca­pa­bil­i­ty as such.

She’ll be chal­lenged to counter Im­bert’s pre­sen­ta­tion—point, project and probe—with her own “Budge­festo,” like­ly pro­mot­ing the UNC’s theme of be­ing “bet­ter,” in­clud­ing on peo­ple-cen­tred is­sues. Fea­si­bil­i­ty of her pre­scrip­tions, how­ev­er, will have to fit T&T’s con­straints.

Al­so ahead: what mes­sages the “In­de­pen­dent Op­po­si­tion bench”—as Gov­ern­ment’s dubbed them—will send af­ter Im­bert’s 2025 cur­tain rais­er Bud­get.