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  • 1 year ago
Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced that an audit has been launched into the entertainment spend at the Office of the Prime Minister to compare how much money was spent in the People's Partnership's five years and the PNM's nine years in office.
Urvashi Tiwari Roopnarine tells us more.
Transcript
00:00The opposition leader in her budget response raised a red flag about the 50
00:05million dollars allocated to the office of the Prime Minister for
00:09entertainment and the hosting of functions. In responding to her claims
00:13of fetting with the public purse, the Prime Minister in his budget
00:17contribution defended the allocation instead accusing the People's
00:22Partnership of spending much more during their 2010 to 2015 term than his
00:28government did from 2015 to present. During the Standing Finance Committee
00:33the Finance Minister today revealed his intention to prove the same.
00:38I have today instructed the Central Audit Division to audit the expenditure at the
00:44office of the Prime Minister in terms of entertainment and other expenses such as
00:50maintenance of the Diplomatic Centre and so on for the period 2010 to 2015 and
00:56the period 2015 to 2024 and I shall lay the report of the Central Audit Committee
01:03in the Parliament so that we can see exactly what was spent. He promised the
01:08report within three months. The Minister was asked if the 67 million dollars
01:13allocated by his ministry for salaries and the cost of living allowance took
01:19into consideration the rollout of the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority
01:23the TTRA. The TTRA is mobilizing, it's recruiting, it's fleshing out its
01:30organizational structure and so on. It's dealing with the persons who applied for
01:34transfer and so on. There would still be an enforcement division of public
01:40servants so what the ministry officials did is provided for the full year. If
01:46around the mid-year we do not need this full amount because the TTRA is fully
01:53operational which we expect it will be by the mid-year then this amount will be
01:58adjusted. He admits to this challenge faced by his ministry retaining
02:04competent staff and filling vacancies as he says prospective applicants don't
02:10seem to be attracted to the terms and conditions offered. Sometimes when you go
02:15out you just don't get the quality of staff you're looking for because people
02:21can earn so much more in the private sector so it's a little problem for us
02:25but we're gonna keep at it because we need legal officers, IT specialists and
02:30criminal investigators in the Inland Revenue Division. When the item of house
02:35rates appeared again this time to the tune of $100,000 under the finance
02:41ministry, Coleman Byrd was asked for a proper detailed explanation as to what
02:48exactly is house rates. How long it has been outstanding and whether or not this
02:55payment will wipe out all arrears because that is how you described it on
02:59a previous occasion. I will most certainly provide you that information I
03:06will urge the public servants to clear this off so no longer appears as a line
03:11item. Between half a million and 1 million dollars of public monies it was
03:17revealed is lost annually via pension payments when pensioners die and their
03:23relatives fail to inform the state and MTS was in for commendation by the
03:29minister for saving his ministry from sabotage. I must also commend the
03:34security services for the great work they did in 2024 to catch somebody who
03:43tried to sabotage the air conditioning system in the Ministry of Finance head
03:48office and attempted to flood all the floors of the ministry. That person was
03:54detected by our security, apprehended, arrested and charged. It was announced
04:01that the finance ministry made its last 15 million dollar annual payment to the
04:05central bank for the Eric Williams financial complex. That means the state
04:10now owns the complex. Urvashi Tiwari, Rupnur Rai, TV6 News.
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