00:00The young people were granted an opportunity and made their voices heard saying they want quality over quantity.
00:08Millions and billions of dollars cause a lot of things but I fail to see the plan in these numbers.
00:22I fail to see a system that works to fix the problems that we have.
00:27And I fail to see how these numbers are going to interconnect to build our society.
00:35It's all well and good to put money into things but we need to see change.
00:42And we've been seeing them put lots of money towards the big ones, crime and education, for years.
00:48But where are we seeing the improvement?
00:51This cohort does not envy the finance minister's job.
00:55Well balanced in the sense that we recognize the economic climate that we're in currently.
01:02And we also recognize that a significant proportion of the budget is in recurrent expenditure.
01:10I'm sure we all can agree here that we still have subsidized gas, subsidized electricity rates.
01:17We still have free education, free healthcare.
01:20And I think the government is making the most of the current situation.
01:24And while the young people agree the budget would take the country through the next fiscal year,
01:30they believe there's nothing done for after that period.
01:34Throughout all these sectors within the government there's been, year over year, a lot of money put into all the sectors.
01:43But I haven't seen a lot of planning for the future.
01:46I've seen a lot of maintenance of the country, so like the subsidies for various sectors.
01:52And money being invested in the country, but nothing for long-term future development.
02:00Even as there are many opportunities for the young people of TNT,
02:05this group says attention ought to be paid to the actual aspirations of this demographic
02:11to reduce the drop-off rate in specific programs.
02:16I had the opportunity to be part of one of their recent programs, the National Leadership Training Program.
02:23And there wasn't a single drop-out in that specific program that they had.
02:28We started the course with 100 students, we ended it with 100 students.
02:33Whereas you will often hear in the programs like YAP and Amplify and all of these things that there's a significant drop-out rate.
02:42So I think now with this allocation of $338 or $336 million,
02:49we should place more focus on programs that the young people themselves want to see.
02:53And student-athletes have unmet needs.
02:57Another thing that the Minister could have done is allocated funds to actual traveling for sports.
03:05Whereas as I play sports, most of the money comes out of my own pocket
03:10when I go to travel and represent a country.
03:12And if I go to represent Trinidad and Tobago, I would like for the government to help me out.
03:16To help me out so I can bring back to them and show them that Trinidad does have very talented people.
03:22Arvishi Tamwari, Rupnur Ryan, TV6 News.
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