With the government signalling the reading of the much-awaited budget presentation next Monday, stakeholders are sharing their budget recommendations ahead of the presentation. Among the requests - NIS reform, import control measures and support for the tourism sector. Rynessa Cutting has more.
00:00Pensioners and the elderly are among those in the national population, keenly awaiting the reading of Budget 2026, particularly given the challenges facing the national insurance scheme.
00:13The Trinidad and Tobago Association of Retired Persons says, while it does not want to see NIS contributions increased, it would support an increase in the compulsory retirement age, among other initiatives.
00:26Tax for government pensioners who receive pension above $7,500 a month, that should be removed, so that they should not be paying tax on their pensions above $7,500.
00:42Those who get pension or government pension below $7,500, they don't pay tax because $7,500 is your personal allowance.
00:50The second thing that we would like to see is that there's a restructure of the national insurance system.
00:58So there should be an increase in the compulsory retirement age in the public service to 65 years.
01:05But persons should have the option to retire before 65.
01:09So that if you want to go at 60 or you want to go 61, whatever, you can do that.
01:17And that, in our view, will help to restructure the NIS.
01:21Meantime, the farming community is looking on with high hopes following the latest cabinet reshuffle,
01:27which saw land issues being moved from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Legal Affairs.
01:34Oh, that might be a good move.
01:36Hopefully that we could get the land issues sorted out and land tenure to the farmers with their documents could be done in a more rapid time than we wait in 20, 30 years, in some cases, 10, 15 years waiting for our documents.
01:52And hopefully that that will be something that's coming to help us out and we could move forward with that land tenure.
01:59Because once we get land tenure, which means that we could now get some incentives to put in better camera systems and them kind of things,
02:10we can now get loans to do those things.
02:13Khan is also hopeful that this administration will implement import control measures.
02:18In a time when we have a crucial issue with foreign exchange, I am not saying to stop all imports.
02:24There are some imports that must take place.
02:26But things that we are producing are known to produce in large quantities.
02:31We should have some sort of protection within our agriculture sector to protect the farmers for their production.
02:39Tourism stakeholders are waiting with bated breath to see whether government will see it fit to strongly pursue diversification moving forward by investing in the fastest growing sector worldwide.
02:50Now, to be able to do that requires money and we do know that the government is going to have a deficit budget this year, a negative budget.
02:59So, in the past, we had a 10% head tax that used to be charged for occupancy at the hotels.
03:07And that 10% used to go into a fund to do international marketing and positioning of the destination.
03:15However, within recent times, in the past government, it was going to be consolidated fund.
03:20So, what we would like to see is for them to redirect that towards the international marketing process,
03:27which would not interfere too much with the funding that they have, but will certainly help place us on the market.
03:34So, that's one of the things.
03:37The other things would be incentives and grants for small and medium-sized operators.
03:43Ms. Boucher says there are other low-hanging fruit which could yield significant foreign exchange.
03:49For example, cruise shipping is a critical part.
03:52And we need to ensure that we have a cruise ship committee that has all stakeholders on board so that we will attract more cruise ships to the destination.
03:59Do you know we charge $5 for anybody who comes off a ship in the cruise ship season?
04:06But there are other countries that charge for anybody who is on the cruise ship.
04:09So, there are several things we need to look at to increase the foreign exchange earnings.
04:14And it is not just an economic driver.
04:16It is a reflection of our national pride and identity.
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