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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