Govt pushes back Budget Day

Speaking with Newsday at the Eric Williams Financial Complex yesterday, Enill also produced the draft 2005 International Monetary Fund (IMF) Article IV Consultation document and said it clearly showed that the IMF never accused Government of financial squandermania as alleged by a daily newspaper (not Newsday) report.

Following a pre-Budget planning session at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Monday, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said Budget Day was tentatively scheduled for September 5 and "only time will tell whether we will make that deadline or not."

However, Enill yesterday said, "We are not going to be ready for that date. We had planned very early to try for a September 5 date. What has occurred is that the exercise, based on the submissions from the different ministries, based on the new priorities, has caused some slippage. In a lot of instances, the ministries that feed into the process have not provided all the information in the manner that we want it. That’s really where the slippage is." Notwithstanding this development, Enill said Government ministries still had an August 26 deadline to submit their final Budget proposals.

Enill explained that the new priorities, outlined by the Prime Minister to all senior Cabinet ministers, would ensure that all of the programmes of all Government ministries during the next fiscal year would deliver tangible and positive benefits to all groups and individuals within the society. Sources have said the 2005/2006 Budget’s primary focus is on the family.

Enill said at this stage, Government had a draft set of numbers and documents which provide a rough template of what the 2005/2006 Budget could be, but like the much-touted draft IMF 2005 Article IV document, this was just the first document and "where we end up could be significantly different from where we started." Asked if this meant a Budget higher than the $31 billion figure alluded to by Manning, Enill explained that final size of the Budget would be determined at the end of the current exercise.

With the Senate resuming its sittings on Wednesday at 10 am and the House of Representatives tentatively slated to resume sittings on either September 2 or September 5, Enill said a decision on a final Budget date should be made in two weeks time, but could not say what that date was likely to be at this stage.

However, he added that Government would ensure that a Budget was in place before the end of September. Depending on the date the Lower House resumes sittings, sources claim that Budget Day could now fall somewhere between September 5 to 26.

Enill also said a thorough study of the 2005 IMF draft document, published yesterday in the same newspaper which published the first report, that "the IMF has not said in anything that is written there, that they are accusing the Government of squandermania." He said national budgets produced by all governments in TT were election budgets because "each budget determines whether the population believes you are working in their interest or otherwise."