PNM not impressed, calls budget disappointing

Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley is not impressed with the People's partnserhip budget, which he has described as "disappointing".

He told the Trinidad Express the budget "promised a lot but delivered a little", except for three definitive areas:

• Government's treatment of the CLICO fiasco
• Hindu Credit Union issue
• The establishment of a database for the Motor Vehicle Department

"It was simply a rehash of the cliched proposals that have formed past budgets...the CNGs, the small businesses, the agriculture comments," he said.

Rowley said the budget lacked direction or change, noting that itv was disappointing since the new government had promised so much.

"I was expecting that the new Government that promised so much change would have brought some change. There was no change to anything in Trinidad and Tobago after this budget. I expected that there would be something that would change our circumstance. This budget does not do it," Rowley told the paper.

He called the fiscal document "very mundane, very stilted and cliched and offered us no improvement in our current circumstances, and all the brilliance that was promised."

Laventille West MP NiLeung Hypolite, expressed concerns about the nearly $8 billion deficit. He said the government must tell the country how it will finance this deficit.

He added that "most of these things inside that budget are issues or policies that the People's National Movement government had started to put in place."
Former Works Minister Colm Imbert is also not impressed. "I saw very strange things in the budget that made no sense to me," Imbert told the Express.

"As far as I'm concerned it is totally irresponsible and the Minister did not explain how his Government was going to finance that...deficit. He was very evasive with respect to that, so I was very disappointed in that, I expected better from Mr Dookeran," Imbert said.

He also criticised the rescue for CLICO and the Hindu Credit Union (HCU).

"There are many retired people, elderly people who would have had their life savings at CLICO. They were told by the People's National Movement (PNM) government that their savings were safe and as their savings mature they might have to wait a little while, but they will get them.

"What I see now is that you could only get $75,000 and the balance over 20 years at no interest," he said.

"So what he has done is literally destroyed the value of people's savings at CLICO, because if you take the present value of money and stretch it over 20 years, you cut the value in half.

"It is going to be a shocking blow to retirees earning a little interest on their money in CLICO before. I don't think they thought that through, I think somebody dreamt it up, it sounds good, it's a horrible blow," he told the paper.