Indarsingh warns of job losses

Indarsingh had created a verbal fray by lamenting the ministry’s $17 million cut in the wage bill for shortterm employment (from $36 million last year to $18 million this fiscal year) and a $4 million cut in contract employment from $23 million to $19 million.

At his observation of Budget cuts, Critchlow- Cockburn stated, “We have not reduced staff. We’ll need to adjust it at a Mid-Year Review,” leading to Indarsingh’s blunt accusation.

The question over recurrent expenditure was more politely raised earlier by Princes Town MP Barry Padarath, who had likewise evoked the admission of a Mid-Year Review adjustment plus a possible extra injection of more funds, but also the minister’s stout denial of being severely under-resourced. Cumuto- Manzanilla MP Christine Newallo-Hosein also prodded the minister’s data and herself earned a rebuke from the Chair, as the Opposition constantly tested the arithmetic of the minister, who stood by her figures. The ministry’s total allocation is $4.75 billion.

Couva North MP Ramona Ramdial queried a $7 million reduction for rental accommodation, only to learn this was due to monies spent last year for #1 Alexandra Place, St Clair, from which the ministry has since moved out. Tabaquite MP Dr Suruj Rambachan asked the minister if she was deliberately understating the real budgetary requirements of her ministry, and ventured, “So the Ministry of Finance has taken a deliberate strategy to understate their Budget?” Otherwise the minister disclosed that 24,000 people use Food Cards, with 3,158 people now on hold and 1,459 people instead paid their assistance by cheque or direct deposit.

Rambachan evoked information from the minister that a person’s Senior Citizens Grant is suspended if they leave the country.