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  • 5 weeks ago
The Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo says the Government is putting measures in place to ensure Trinidad and Tobago gets value for money from the amount of money the Government spends every day.

And exactly how much money is that?

It was an issue raised during the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturer's Association post-Budget Discussion.

Juhel Browne reports.
Transcript
00:00It's easy to spend money. Making sure we get value for money is not always so easy.
00:06But you have persons and institutions and entities today that are designed for exactly that purpose.
00:13Finance Minister DeVedronat Tancu as he responded to a concern expressed by one of the attendees
00:19of the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturing Association's post-budget discussion
00:24at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad Hotel in Port of Spain.
00:27$156 million a day. That number is significant. That's what the government spent every day.
00:34$156 million between 2011 and 2015. The government at that time, if I think they had properly controlled
00:44those funds and made sure they were allocated to value creation, would probably have continued
00:51to be the government after 2015. So that is water under the bridge.
00:55An apparent reference to the UNC-led People's Partnership Administration, which lost the
01:01general election in 2015 to the PNM. For almost 10 years, the PNM led the government for two terms
01:07until the UNC and its coalition of interests won the 2025 general election on April 28th.
01:14What I'm looking for now is to hear more from the current government about the controls so that all the money
01:22that we generate from the revenue opportunities that come up in the new budget and from the taxes we collect
01:27and from the petrochemical revenues are all prudently deployed towards capacity building and wealth creation,
01:36reduction of crime and all the other good things that we want to see happen in the country that we love.
01:39On Monday, Finance Minister Tanku told the Parliament that for fiscal 2026, the government's total revenue
01:46is projected to be $55.367 billion, while total expenditure is projected to be $59.23 billion,
01:55with a resulting projected fiscal deficit of $3.865 billion.
02:00So I think there has to be a real focus and concentration, some more conversation and transparency
02:07about what level of controls we're going to have, because I don't think we have $156 million a day
02:13to spend on this round.
02:16The finance minister responded by making reference to the former PNM administration.
02:21I can tell you that on average we'll be spending about the same amount
02:24as the former government spent every year as well.
02:28You reached 2010 to 2015.
02:30It's a period of time in which I was financial advisor to the prime minister,
02:35so I can speak to that as well.
02:37It's a period of time in which the economy grew substantially.
02:42When you compare that to 2015, the current,
02:45in which the economy collapsed by almost 20%,
02:50but the same amount of money was spent.
02:52So the issue is not how much money we spend per day.
02:55The issue is what we spend that money on.
02:59Minister Tanku made reference to certain announcements he made in his budget statement,
03:03such as the proposed Financial Oversight and Appropriations Committee,
03:08which is to be chaired by the prime minister,
03:10with the deputy chair being the minister of finance.
03:13What you would not have heard about, because I can't speak about everything in the budget,
03:17is the enforcement and the strengthening of the BIR,
03:21of customs and excise, of the Office of Procurement Regulator.
03:25All of those are agencies designed to ensure that we get some value for money.
03:30Finance Minister Tanku also said there will be greater emphasis at the ministry level
03:34to ensure that there is greater accountability via the Auditor General
03:38and other agencies within the ministries.
03:41Jules Brown, TV6 News.
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