00:00The mid-year budget review is expected in about one month's time.
00:05And while there are many unknowns in that equation, economist Mariano Brown says one thing remains certain, a burgeoning deficit.
00:14I think I saw this morning some central bank numbers suggesting that the deficit for the first half of the year was $9 billion.
00:24If what my eyes saw this morning were correct, this is a tough call. It starts off by being a tough call.
00:34Making a decision to spend more money and or to eliminate revenue makes it a tougher call.
00:41The UNC government has promised to increase public sector wages by at least 10%, repeal the Revenue Authority Act, and restart the Petrachian Refinery, among other objectives.
00:54We could expect that deficit to balloon, you would say.
00:58Well, yes. And that has implications for Trinidad in the biggest borrowing position.
01:04I think we are already over 70%, not included government-guaranteed debt.
01:11However, the government has vowed to make money and to find money by all means.
01:17One such plan is to pursue energy deals with Guyana.
01:20However, while the potential may be there, Brown points out that one major challenge remains.
01:26The difficulty is not the pipeline. The difficulty is that the pipeline passes through Venezuela waters.
01:34So it's not going to escape OFAC. And we already know what the position is with that.
01:42So if they're running a pipeline between Guyana and Trinidad, the first difficulty is how does it get past Venezuela waters?
01:51As for the plans to get gas from Grenada?
01:55The Grenada government-wise, it may have control of those fields, is in no better position in terms of determining when those fields are going to be explored.
02:05And then Trinidad and Tobago, with its own seven fields, which have not yet been, there's no final decisions on those fields.
02:13So you could have any amount of conversations that you want. The point is, until somebody decides to spend the money, there's no prospect of revenue.
02:21Renasa Cutting, TV6 News.
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