(Trinidad Express) Minister of Finance Colm Imbert undertook a balancing act of giving some and taking some, as he delivered his $56.1 billion fiscal package in the House of Representatives yesterday for the 2022/23 financial year.
Not surprisingly, the Minister of Finance increased the price of fuel – by $1 per litre for premium and super gasoline; and 50 cents for diesel. But he sought to offset the effect that this increase in transport cost would have on the poor, by giving a one-off $1,000 grant to all recipients of public assistance grants such as pensioners, social welfare recipients, disability grant recipients. With the Government capping its support for the price of fuel at $1 billion a year, the new costs of fuel are $7.75 per litre for premium, $6.97 for super, $4.41 for diesel and $4.50 for kerosene. LPG remains the same price of $21 for a 20-pound cylinder.
The cost of travel to Tobago via the airbridge and seabridge has also been increased- by $50 for all tickets ($150 to 200 one way). On the seabridge, persons over 60 who hitherto travelled free would now pay $25 for a one-way ticket ($50 for a return ticket), standard class increased from $50 to $75 and premium from $100 to $150.
The budget, is which titled “Tenacity and Stability in the Face of Global Challenges” is based on an oil price of US$92.50 a barrel and a natural gas price of US$6 per MMBtu. The budget projections include total revenue at $56.175 billion and total expenditure at $57.685 billion, creating a “close to balance” situation with a deficit of $1.510 billion.
The budget debate will resume on Friday at 10 a.m. with the Opposition Leader’s reply.
Imbert said from January all workers will benefit from the increase in the personal tax allowance which has been increased from $84,000 to $90,000 which put an additional $1,500 per year in the pockets of over 300,000 taxpayers, with people earning $7,500 a month or less paying no income tax at all.
The minister made good on the Prime Minister’s promise to reward healthcare workers for their service during the pandemic. Acting on the instructions of the Prime Minister, he said he allocated the sum of $210 million in the Estimates of Expenditure for fiscal 2023 for a special ex gratia payment to be given to over 20,000 health workers.
But on the issue of public sector wage negotiations, the Minister of Finance stood by the Government’s four per cent wage increase offer, insisting that any more than that, would “wreck the economy not only for the same public servants but for everyone else”.
The minister said the four per cent wage increase would cost an additional billion a year if one included the wider State sector employees, plus a backpay of an additional $4.6 billion, if one included employees in the wider State sector. The minister went to say that if Government accepted the 19 per cent that the PSA was demanding for 2014-2016 period (which is one half of the period under review), the additional cost for the wider State sector would be $3.4 billion annually and $30.3 billion in backpay, if extended to the wider State sector.
For a similar increase to take in the period 2017-2019 the arrears would rise to $50 billion, which, he said, is equivalent to the entire annual budget. He said the Government will already have to dig deep into its pockets to pay the four per cent. He said nevertheless the Government stood ready to pay the four per cent increase. He pointed out that every public sector worker still had their jobs, notwithstanding the economic challenges that the Government had faced.
Dealing with the National Insurance Fund and the issue of its declining viability, the minister seemed to hint at an increase in the compulsory retirement age, pointing to other Caribbean countries where this was done such as Grenada (65 years), Barbados (67 years) and Jamaica (65 years).