TV6 PANEL DISCUSSION

TV6 hosted a budget panel discussion last night which covered a range of issues, for those of you who missed it, here are some highlights.

Transcript

00:00The opposition expressed disdain over the five-hour budget presentation by

00:05Finance Minister Colm Imbert on Monday.

00:08It was perhaps an exercise in an extended gaslighting process where the Minister was trying to

00:13convince members of the population that Trinidad and Tobago is doing well, we've

00:18grown substantially over the last few years. When everyone knows that we are in

00:23serious crisis, we have a foreign exchange crisis, we have an unemployment

00:26crisis, we have poverty crisis, etc. And as a result, none of the programs, none of

00:31these contents of 175 pages of this budget speech included any plan for

00:37development or for growth of our economy.

00:40Economist and lecturer Dr. Arjun says he was a bit puzzled by growth figures presented, especially since the CSO, the

00:48official source, did not publish its quarter 4 2023 figures.

00:54The M. G. Griffiths said that he indicated it was about 2.6%. But when looking at the figures in terms of the

00:59production of LNG, gas and oil, LNG production fell so far for this year.

01:05When you look at the monthly average of daily production, it actually fell

01:10by about 8% for LNG. For gas, it fell by about 4.03% and for oil, approximately 8%.

01:16Relative to the foreign exchange shortage representing the government on TV6's

01:21budget panel, local government minister Fares Al Rawi says there were nine items

01:26in the budget to address the forex crisis.

01:29The big one on the table was the minister of finances raising the issue of draft

01:35legislation and discussions on transfer pricing. Transfer pricing is in U.S.

01:40dollars. Massive revenue.

01:43When we did the spotlight on energy, we pointed out that there was almost 16 billion U.S.

01:50dollars lost as a result of transfer pricing.

01:54Speaking to the Crime Scourge, this economist makes the link with the absence of fathers in many other homes.

02:01Fathers raise men, all right?

02:04You can't have a community of single mothers and expect to have young men staying on the street.

02:10And the problem in Trinidad and Tobago, from my days growing up as a youth leader in NJAC, is what we were seeing since

02:17then, is that unless we have men in households and families in households focusing on the problems of the family at the family level.

02:30Will 2,000 more cars for the TTPS make a significant dent on crime?

02:36The TTPS and the Ministry of National Security could very well capitalise on additional infrastructure,

02:43additional resources, additional IT equipment in their fight against crime.

02:48There are two things that we need to be concerned about.

02:50One is the level of perceived corruption within the TTPS.

02:56If that doesn't, if we don't fix that, then you could give the TTPS as much resources as you can.

03:04But then there's a situation where you basically are not sure whether the true intent is to fight crime within the TTPS.

03:14The other issue is that, what is happening with all of those previous cars that we would have given to the TTPS?

03:22Those that parked up in Vimcotiad, Paris.

03:26Arvishita Wari, Rubna Rai, TV6 News.