Noble: Reality vs 2025 Budget—and our lack of “genuine discussions”

Finance Minister Colm Imbert delivered his version of Black Stalin’s Wait Dorothy Wait.

His budget was the reverse of Stalin’s lyrics: That oil money come, and oil money go, and poor people remain on the pavement and ghetto, aah when Mr Divider starts to divide the bread equally, I go finish the whole damn calypso about Dorothy!

Mr Imbert, today’s Mr Divider, messaged the poor people on the pavement: “…within a few years, as the cross-border gas starts to flow, and revenues increase, we will improve the situation for the most vulnerable in our society.

“We are determined to expand our capacity to serve and to capitalize on the socioeconomic advancements that lie ahead, ensuring that when re-elected, we will carry forward the momentum of progress in Trinidad and Tobago.”

In other words: “Big money coming, hold strain! Vote for us, and your business will be fixed!”

Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in her preliminary remarks, went one up. Having identified the difference in content between the Prime Minister’s and the Finance Minister’s utterances, she promised to “increase the minimum wage to $25 and offer public servants a 10% hike in wage negotiations.”

Her promise is completely believable in the context of her administration’s 2015 wage settlement. The then-Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke acknowledged that the 14% was the highest offer ever.

It was three times the 2011 wage settlement even though by then, the economy struggled with an oil price below US$50 a barrel and natural gas prices closer to US$2.75 per unit. That single decision added over $1 billion to the fiscal account.

In fact, after the PSA’s loss over the Revenue Authority at the Privy Council, Mr Duke signaled this reprise.

In other words: Let the good times begin again! Don’t worry, be happy!

Not to be left out of the discussion, Mr Wade George, the executive chairman of Ernst & Young Caribbean, intoned: “National security is a foundational element in the state’s right to tax. We do ourselves a disservice in focusing on the price of crime to business.

“What price can you place on the impact of crime on the national psyche, the anxiety of citizens and the migration of skilled young people? The answer is obvious: there can be no prosperity without security.”

At the same forum, Imbert reported: “I do think that quite a few people feel that things are better now than they were five or seven years ago.”

Was this what the party groups told him? I have offered no evidence to support his assertion.

However, the population knows the effect of Covid-19 deaths on their family and community circles. They still feel the pain from the inflation wrought by the Russia-Ukraine war. And now they are like prisoners in solitary confinement awaiting the next death blow.

Small wonder that Minister Imbert’s budget noted: “We are also actively addressing mental health through policy changes, public health campaigns and expanded healthcare services.”

Mr George did not address Minister Imbert’s claim of “considerable tax evasion” in the country to the tune of $2.5 billion for value-added tax (VAT).

In 2019, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley reported: “The experts tell us that approximately 40% of (taxes) due is not collected, and that is because of the system of collection (which) encourages that circumstance.”

Are these ‘little people’ who owe these sums?

By December 2019, Dr Rowley, exasperated by the Paria v Unipet court matter over unpaid debt, questioned: “…what is the sense of entitlement we have in this country that someone is responsible for you, even when you’re being ridiculous and unproductive ?”

The sad part is that many people in our country have this sense of entitlement. We see it in many ways.

Recently, two prominent business people were said to owe over $100 million in unpaid taxes. At the time, the Chamber declared that “tax compliance was complex and a fair, mutually beneficial system was essential.”

It asserted: “These allegations do not reflect the overall tax compliance of the private sector.”

So, who should the taxpayer whose taxes are deducted at source believe? Dr Rowley, Minister Imbert or the Chamber? Dr Rowley is arguing that businesses do not pay tax (compliance), and Mr Imbert is saying they ‘evade taxes’ (which is a criminal act), while the Chamber says ‘filing taxes is hard and complicated’.

Yet, still, there was a hue and cry over the disclosure of the tax affairs of the two enterprises.

But the president of the T&T Coalition of Services Industries, Dianne Joseph, raised pertinent questions:

“The TTCSI takes note of the allegations of millions of dollars owed in taxes by businesses in our society. How were those taxes allowed to accumulate to the sums quoted? Were these persons given waivers? Were there discussions between them and the authorities that prompted them to accumulate the debts? Or is it without approval or consent?”

It is wise not to hold your breath for the answers. Does the average wage earner now understand why there is a furore over the Revenue Authority?

Not paying or evading taxes is not a victimless crime. In 2019, at the Port of Spain hospital’s sod-turning, Dr Rowley said: “If we don’t collect (taxes), we will find ourselves unable to fund what we have aspired to.”

This concern materialized in 2024 when Rev Arnold Gopeesingh lamented: “Not everyone living in Trinidad and Tobago can put out thousands of dollars when they fall ill, especially if they need constant care.”

Ent?

Mr George was in the right church but in the wrong pew when he said: “The national budget did not challenge the paradigm in which we operate and frontally address the ‘hard issues’…”

Nobody did. They were all too busy giving speeches and having ‘light moments’.

The cold reality is that Trinidad’s economy depends on incomes accruing from the exploitation of natural resources by foreign firms.

Dudley Seers (1961) explained our budgetary plight: the coincidence of high favorable economic growth rates alongside large pockets of poverty and rising unemployment plus high and intractable unemployment alongside high and rising wages. We are two countries in one nation.

The myth of progress hides the raw reality of unequal distribution of wealth. Academia, business groups, and even many labor organizations do not attempt to provide economic or political education.

This barrenness of little or no genuine discussion hinders us from transforming our economy and dealing with our crime situation. It allows our politicians to keep us in the dark. More anon.