Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles Friday described the TT$63.3 billion (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) budget presented to Parliament earlier this week by the Trinidad and Tobago government as ‘deceitful, deceptive, and destructive’ and that the oil rich-twin island republic has entered into a recession.
‘Mr. Speaker, what makes this worse is that this is a recession caused by the UNC (United National Congress) Government and its failed policies, which are anti-people, anti-business, and anti-investment.’
In her two and a half hour rebuttal of the fiscal package presented by Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo on Monday, Beckles said that the government had increased electricity rates, introduce a series of new taxes all designed to make doing business in Trinidad and Tobago much more difficult.
‘It is not an investor-friendly budget. It is in fact a disaster,’ she said, adding that throughout his presentation, Tancoo ‘struggled to articulate anything: an economic plan or the way forward.
‘He failed to share any meaningful achievement under his inept …Government. Basically, that Minister spent over two hours reading the UNC’s (United National Congress) diagnosis of how they have failed this country. He struggled and still failed to convince the population of anything worthwhile that the UNC did in the last 18 months or is going to do in the next year.’
She said that the budget was ‘bereft of any vision’ adding ‘it was empty on improving lives, it is empty on reducing the cost of living, especially food prices, which, despite the Minister’s illusionary rhetoric, have skyrocketed since May 2025
‘The budget was empty on new projects or programmes, empty on diversification, empty on focus on youth, empty on job creation, empty on economics or finance,’ she said, adding that since coming to office in April last year, it has fired tens of thousands of people, introduced a landlord tax, a coconut oil tax, as well as increasing taxes on alcoholic beverage, passport and birth certificate fees and driver’s licence fee’.
Beckles quoted the lyrics of one of the tunes by the calypsonian, The Mighty Sparrow, who is being laid to rest on Friday following his death in the United States last month, saying ‘and in a million different ways they violate the law. It’s the same good, no-good bastards who oppress the poor with their false declaration, tax evasion, defrauding customs duty.’
Beckles said that the UNC government had come into office ‘riding a wave of pseudo-popular support amidst falsely promising to improve the lives of those whom they courted for votes
‘They promised that everybody would win. Mr Speaker, some people were hopeful. They believed in pie-in-the-sky promises like 50,000 jobs to be created, 500 houses per week, 10 per cent salary payments and arrears across the board, opportunities for businesses to prosper…and many more promises.
‘Now, after only a short time in office…the people of this country know that was the greatest scam. The people are now utterly fed up. They are frustrated. They are angry. The people cannot wait one more day to see the backs of this wicked and vindictive government.’
The Opposition Leader said that the budget is anti-people, anti-development, authoritarian and anti-democratic.
She said On Monday, the Finance Minister ‘wasted everyone’s time delivering an underwhelming budget, an empty and bikini budget.
‘The budget delivered absolutely nothing of substance to the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Instead, he followed his fake and fraudulent budget of 2026 with an even worse budget in 2027 of deceit and deception, malice and mamaguy.
‘Today I declare, it was an awful budget. It did nothing to excite the business community out of its depressed state. There was nothing to attract domestic and foreign investors. In fact, Mr. Speaker the changes to withholding tax and tax losses carried forward will actually chase away investors.
‘Mr Speaker, if there were anything lower than an ‘F’, I would have given that grade to the budget presentation of this Minister of Finance. Indeed, I give him a ‘U’, which is no grade at all. It is the grade you get when you are absent for an exam.’
She said that the fiscal package gave little or no reporting on the out-turn from the previous year, or on the performance of projects and programmes announced in the previous 2026 budget documents.
‘Worse of all, it completely failed to identify the problems we face as a country at this time and present any type of solution. Mr Speaker, it was short, skimpy, and it avoided any discussion of our economic situation, which should be at the core of all budgets. Instead, this budget covered very little of the important things. We thus deem it to be a bikini budget.’
She told legislators that the government ‘has shamelessly recycled promises from the 2026 budget that it failed to deliver on including the NEXTCLASS programme which is intended to create an AI-powered user interface platform that empowers teachers with the resources to enhance their teaching effectiveness and foster a more personalised learning environment.
She said the government had promised that the project would begin in January tis year, but Tancoo in his budget presentation indicating that the project should be rolled out next year.
Beckles questioned what happened to the much-touted Employment Fund of TT$475 million which ‘was supposed to contribute directly towards job creation in the country.
‘The Minister did not make a single mention of this Fund. Mr. Speaker, Where are the Funds??
The fact is, not one cent had been spent out of this Fund to employ people. The Minister said that it required legislation to be implemented, and then he refused to give any further details.’
She said nowhere’ is the dangerous incompetence of this government more evident than in its mismanagement and mishandling of the economy.
‘Maybe out of shame, maybe in an attempt to deceive…… This Minister of Finance, for the first time in the 64-year history of this country, did not give an economic report as part of the budget statement.
‘He did not explain or present the economic performance for 2025 or what the expectations for 2026 and 2027 would be,’ she said, offering a suggestion that Tancoo had purposely refrained from making the presentation because of the ‘bad’ state of the economy.
‘The Minister of Finance, either intentionally, or out of dereliction of duty, failed to present the true state of the economy. Instead, he attempted to deceive,’ she said, quoting from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report in 2024, ‘the last Article 4 Consultation’ under the previous People’s National Movement (PNM) government.
She said that the report had stated ‘For the first time in a decade, Trinidad and Tobago is undergoing a gradual and sustained economic recovery,’ with Beckles saying that it exposes ‘ the deceit that the Minister of Finance continues to parrot about who crashed the economy.
‘The facts are very clear, and the Minister of Finance knows it: in April 2025, he inherited a growing economy,’ she said, adding that his ‘own Review of the Economy 2026 shows economic growth in 2022 of 1.1 per cent, economic growth in 2023 of 1.4 per cent and in 2024, economic growth of 26 per cent.
Beckles said that in April this year, the IMF, based on the growth trajectory established by the previous government, had estimated ‘growth for Trinidad and Tobago of 2.4 per cent in 2025, and 1.1 per cent this year.
But she said instead as soon as the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government came into office, it immediately commenced terminating workers by the tens of thousands. They attacked businesses, large and small, calling some cartels and others worse, while killing business and investor confidence.
‘They cancelled loan guarantee arrangements and other business support programmers for small businesses. They scrapped the access to foreign exchange for small manufactures provided through the Exim Bank.
‘They imposed high taxes, fines, surcharges, levies and fees. They increased rates, increasing costs for businesses and consumers alike,’ Beckles said, adding that the government oversaw the shutdown of Nutrien over a disagreement about port fees, and the curtailing of operations at Methanex and Proman in the energy sector.
‘They plunged this country into a perpetual state of emergency, further stymieing economic growth,’ she said, adding that the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago data shows that the previous quarter, the fourth quarter of 2025, also experienced a decline of 0.9 per cent per cent.
‘That marks two consecutive quarters of economic decline going into 2026,’ she said, adding that the ‘Review of the Economy 2026, prepared by his Ministry of Finance, is forecasting GDP to contract for a second consecutive year, by 2.2 per cent.
Mr Speaker, with two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth and two consecutive years of accelerating contraction in real GDP, I take no pleasure in saying what the Minister of Finance is afraid to say, what the Central Bank Governor may not want to admit, and what many economists are seeing: Mr Speaker, this country is now in a recession’.