2017 Budget passes

The committee will have five days to complete its examination of the heads of expenditure at the rate of eight heads per day. House Speaker Bridget Annissette-George announced that with the exception of today each session will begin at 10.30am and continue to 8.30 pm or as long as necessary to complete the eight heads of expenditure for each day.

In winding up the debate before it was sent to the standing Finance Committee, Finance Minister Colm Imbert lambasted the opposition for its criticism of the budget. He knocked Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar for criticising the Government’s plan to divest twenty percent of the shareholding of First Citizens recalling the “IPO scandal” which took place under the watch of the People’s Partnership when major irregularities were discovered in the initial public offering of shares in First Citizens.

He said executives of First Citizens profitted improperly to the tune of millions of dollars during the IPO by exploiting loopholes in the regulations and said the whole affair is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and he has been advised that the results of the SEC’s investigation will soon to be handed to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

He said it was outrageous for the Leader of the Opposition to criticise the Government’s plan to divest shares in First Citizens and said she was obviously hoping that the country had forgotten the IPO scandal and that the PNM government had to fire the whole board of First Citizens. Imbert also said he was concerned about the Opposition Leader’s speechwriter who he said had to be illiterate as well as suffering from some form of intellectual incapacity because he said her remarks were riddled with mistakes and clear indications of a misunderstanding of the budget he had presented.

He said the Opposition Leader had concocted a whole range of falsehoods surrounding former ANSAMcAL executive, Gerry Brooks, attempting to sully the name of a man with an unblemished record in the private sector. He said that the Opposition Leader had claimed that soon after last year’s election Brooks retired as Chief Operating Officer of one of the country’s major conglomerates and that at the time of his retirement he was a member of the board of the parent company of the conglomerate.

He charged that she had also said that within days Brooks had gone from being associated with five entities holding shares in Trinidad and Tobago National Gas Limited to being Chairman of the company’s largest shareholder, the National Gas Company (NGC). Imbert said that in fact, Brooks had retired from ANsAMcAL in April 2015, a full five months before the election and at the same time had also retired from every ANSAMcAL subsidiary and associated company. He said her accusation was a complete fabrication and he was minded to file a complaint on a matter of privilege but he did not have the time or the inclination to do so. He also dismissed as nonsense her charge of interlocking directorships in First Citizens as well as accusations that he removed the Value Added tax from repairs to foreign yachts to benefit himself.