IMBERT’S RINSE-AND-REPEAT BUDGET

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert’s four-hour 2024 Budget had more repeated promises than any other fiscal package in Trinidad and Tobago’s modern history.

Some pledges – like the National Statistical Institute, National Insurance Board, healthcare, and local government reform – were in Imbert’s first Budget, presented in 2016.

Local agricultural production has been hyped in each Budget, but the food import bill skyrocketed from $4 billion in 2015 to $7.3 billion last year.

The thorny issue of diversification has also been touted in all nine budgets, with commitments to broaden the economy into agriculture, tourism, the marine industry, an international financial sector, the creative arts, printing and packaging, and other fields.

The Gambling Commission, improved global market access, and infrastructural development have also featured in each Imbert Budget.

Reform of the tax system in the hydrocarbon industry and exploration of natural gas and crude oil are other repeat subjects.

So, too, are promises with respect to housing, education, and social services.

Imbert gave earlier guarantees on improving the ease of doing business in order to attract foreign direct investments.

Instead, Trinidad and Tobago has sunk on international business ratings and more investors are leaving than setting up operations in the country.

There is an outflow of investors last year to a value of US $914 million, instead of the historic inflow that existed in 2014 and 2015.

Local businesses are owed a total of $7 billion despite the Minister’s assurances of assistance to the sector, including manufacturers and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Digitalisation of the public sector was introduced a few years ago, way behind most progressive governments.

The Rowley Administration has made only limited progress in digitalising State operations, once more leaving T&T trailing most countries.

In 2020, the World Bank urged the Government to deal with corruption, crime and security, foreign exchange controls, lower worker productivity, and red tape in the public sector.

None of these matters have been tackled and may have only gotten worse.

Procurement legislation, a 2015 PNM general election promise, only recently became a reality, and only with a heavily watered-down version of what was promised.

These are a sample of policies and programmes duplicated in each Imbert’s rinse-and-repeat Budget, exposing the Government’s chronic implementation problem.

Reports from the corridors of power are that most important decisions must be approved by Prime Minister Rowley, which he does at his own pace.

Then matters often get bogged down in public service bureaucracy.

A senior private sector official in the energy sector recently revealed that there were 33 approval processes, some of which are done on paper rather than digitally.

If a document gets lost, the process must begin once more.

Because of such hiccups, former private sector successes like Works Minister Rohan Sinanan, have failed to deliver in the Government.

Sinanan is presiding over the worst state of roads and bridges in recent times.

In addition to the red tape, there are funding challenges.

Most government ministers do not know how much money would be allocated for their respective portfolios in annual budgets, and which projects would be placed on the front-burner.

A number of public projects have been flaunted in successive budgets.

In his latest presentation, Imbert assigned $6.2 billion to the Public Sector Improvement Programme (PSIP) for a total of 1,232 infrastructural projects during the fiscal year.

But knowledgeable figures expect only a fraction to be completed, because of the serious implementation issues.

The inability to execute public works was a major reason why then-Prime Minister Patrick Manning introduced special purposes companies almost three decades ago.

But it was later discovered that corruption and short-circuiting of the official system were widespread.

Some of these companies have been shut down or have had their operations curtailed and funding reduced by the Rowley administration.

Independent observers anticipate Imbert making similar promises in his 2024-2025 presentation.