00:00Is budget 2027 transformative? At least one businessman and two of the country's leading economists disagree, noting that the country
00:09is still without a clear vision and medium or long-term plan.
00:13For us as a country to identify what is our competitive advantage and where it is. Is it agro-processing
00:21or is it IT? Is it, you know, what sector should we be looking at? And again, like what my
00:27colleague just said, we need a vision for that. When you look at countries like Singapore or Japan or Korea,
00:35they have a 10-year vision, a 15-year vision, a 20-year vision, and then everything is geared towards
00:42that vision.
00:43Development economist Dr. Jamelia Harris notes, however, that some analysis of the budget measures point to possible priorities of the
00:52government.
00:52For example, in the last fiscal year, 70 million was spent on the DBA campus versus 58 million on all
01:02other school repairs. So we see a prioritization for tertiary education, particularly the academic route.
01:08However, panelists also note the link between education levels and crime, pointing out the need for skills training opportunities.
01:15When we look at the pass rates, for example, at CSEC and CSEC in particular, we're talking about between 40
01:22and 50 percent.
01:23Now, that ignores a large percentage of the population, for example, who drop out.
01:29They start at the number of people who come in to school is something about 18,000, but the number
01:36of people who sit CSEC in four years or five years is about between 16,000 and 17,000.
01:42So we really have, in addition to the people who haven't gotten a full certificate, we're talking about also those
01:50who have dropped out of the system.
01:51Now, that's related to, partly related to some of the crime and violence that we're seeing.
01:55So we really want to have a stable society, and a stable society means that everybody has to have an
02:00opportunity.
02:01Meantime, one core macroeconomic indicator has increased significantly.
02:07What assessment can you make of the unemployment statistics, and what are your thoughts on underemployment?
02:14At 5.4, it is the highest it has been since COVID-19 pandemic.
02:18So it is high relative to where it usually is.
02:22So that's one thing.
02:23The second thing is, we need to look beyond the unemployment rate, because we have declining labor force participation.
02:32It means that our labor force participation rate, sorry, is about 55%.
02:37Prior to COVID, it was about 60%.
02:40In the 1990s and 1980s, it was above 60%, at about 65%.
02:47Two things are important there.
02:49The first is the fact that it's low, and it's lower than the Caribbean average.
02:54And it means that 55% of the working age population is not participating in the labor market.
03:01What are they doing?
03:03That is the question.
03:04And with the country having spent in the range of $750 million on the fuel subsidy in fiscal 2026,
03:12one economist is suggesting government focus on our transportation model, and not the fuel subsidy on super gas.
03:20If you do the arithmetic in the budget speech, you'll see that using his number, 161 is the subsidy,
03:27and he gets $290 million.
03:29That translates to about 178 million liters.
03:34The actual uses of diesel is approximately three times that, somewhere between 500 and 550 million liters of diesel a
03:44year.
03:45So the answer is the subsidy that we're looking at is not $290 million.
03:49It's really somewhere between $900 million and $1.4 million.
03:53We haven't worked out a public transportation system.
03:57And to all intents and purposes, the public transportation system is private sector driven, and it is maxi-taxis.
04:04Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
