Waiting on the Budget

Tomorrow is Budget Day, when Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Patrick Manning, is scheduled to present in the House of Representatives his Budget proposals for 2004/2005. But while Mr Manning’s immediate audience will be in the Parliament Chamber at the Red House, the extended audience for his Budget Speech this year will not only be in Trinidad and Tobago homes and offices, but throughout the hurricane stricken Caribbean, particularly Grenada, Jamaica and Haiti, and in the boardrooms of multinational oil and gas and energy-based companies operating here. It promises to be the first Trinidad and Tobago Budget with so much regional and international appeal since the 1978 Budget Speech of late Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr Eric Williams, in which he outlined proposals for a Caribbean Aid Project.

His Caribbean audience will be awaiting anxiously to hear what the Finance Minister will have to say with respect to the quantum and direction of humanitarian aid proposals contained in the Budget for their hurricane hit countries and whether, where this is relevant, he will touch either on the question of either debt forgiveness or debt rescheduling or a mixture of both. In turn, the energy and energy-based multinationals will be interested, particularly, in whether he will implement a new tax regime for the oil and gas industries and plans for regulating the country’s twin revenue earning majors. At the opposite end will be the expectations of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. For us, it will be a case of wanting to hear what the promised new oil and gas tax regime will mean in terms of increased revenue, expanded social programmes and meaningful development. Of interest, too, to salary and wage earners will be whether it will mean greater tax allowances and, for the motorists, less money for gasolene at the pump.

Government pensioners will be interested in an early Christmas gift, and whether it will mean  an increase in the tax allowance, along with an upgrading of their pensions to enable them to cope with the cost of living. All, including industrialists, businessmen/women, small manufacturers and farmers will be hoping for a reduction in customs duties and Value Added Tax. Concerned citizens, all of whom have an interest in the widening of the social safety net, want to see a Budget that fills gaping holes in education, and even worse, in the health sector that seems to be getting worse. For the oil and gas multinationals already operating here, as well as those seeking to come into it, it will be back to the drawing board to decide how the regime will affect their profit margins and shareholder dividends, and potential for profit making. But all will be interested, regardless of whether salary or wage earner, Government or Old Age Pensioner, Caricom national, multinational investor and potential investor, farmer as well as small and large manufacturer.