00:00The budgets over the past nine years have failed to address core issues plaguing the country.
00:05That's the view of patriotic front leader Michaela Pandey.
00:09Such as rising poverty, inadequate health care and growing inequality.
00:15We anticipate they will neglect the needs of everyday citizens while offering little or no real solutions
00:23for economic diversification or even job creation.
00:27Pandey believes that many sectors including agriculture, manufacturing and tourism
00:33are not experiencing the growth needed to propel the country towards meaningful diversification.
00:39And of course crime isn't helping that and we see Tobago being affected as well.
00:44So the reality is the only thing growing in this economy is crime.
00:48While people can't afford food and housing and the like,
00:53they've completely lost touch with the everyday struggles of people.
00:59She says the $3 increase in minimum wage in the 2023-2024 budget
01:04has failed to alleviate these problems with a rising cost of living.
01:09While she's all for people taking up odds and ends in terms of jobs to survive,
01:14Pandey tells us these should be stepping stones for improvement,
01:18for people to do better and she doesn't believe the system promotes that growth.
01:22For one, she points to what she calls a lot of red tape in setting up small businesses
01:27and she highlights possible avenues for job creation.
01:31We have a whole new world of technology happening right now
01:37where you can provide jobs for young people by modernising what you do.
01:43We have some great ideas and we're going to be responding to it
01:47but of course we'd like to hear what they're going to say first but you have to create jobs.
01:51The tourism sector is something very important as well.
01:54We always think about, yeah, okay, Tobago and sea.
01:58We could be having medical tourism in Trinidad.
02:01We could be having sports tourism in Trinidad.
02:03We have more stadia than any other, any other Caribbean island.
02:08As for addressing the issue of food security…
02:11Stop giving and allocating the least amount of money to agriculture.
02:16Look at the needs of farmers.
02:18Bring them to the table, find out what they suffer from.
02:22When they suffer through no fault of their own losses because of flooding, etc,
02:28there are years that it takes before they get their compensation, before they do that.
02:35In order, when you have a loss, you have to be able to buy back your products
02:40and then all the different expenses that go into starting again.
02:46Panday says the Patriotic Front will be putting forward its proposals
02:50before the September 30th budget, focusing in part on creating jobs for the youth.
02:56Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
Comments