Tag Archives: Budget

The annual reading of the Budget is a ritual. It is real only in that it determines what will be the cost of living in the short and medium term.  This year it imposed additional taxes intended to replace evaporated energy sector revenue in order to prop up a lifestyle, …

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” This is one of the first quotes you learn when trying to understand Monitoring and Evaluation. Given current realities in Trinidad and Tobago, it seems applicable. I recently finished reviewing the National Budgets presented during the period …

So the Finance Minister’s budget presentation is over; we all now know the major highlights. I make no apologies for not offering any red or yellow-tinted responses or comments or analyses. I want to break with the sterile ‘This was good’ and ‘That was bad’ tradition and discuss instead what …

I stopped watching many TV shows and movies a long time ago because they have apparently run out of ideas and are in the habit of using old shows and scripts—that worked sometime in the past—to see if they would work now. I am now convinced that I should also …

“Devalue, the book sense people insist, he must devalue! He has to let the $TT find its true value! “They know book but they don’t know chapter…” Local economist Warren Thompson takes a different view on the Minister of Finance’s 2017 Budget and tells Wired868 why he thinks Colm Imbert …

“As a people we are not part of any budget preparation which would determine our destiny for the next fiscal year. Why all this secrecy? “Why is there no participation by the ordinary citizens? Why don’t we have a date clearly identified for Budget presentation every year?” The following Letter …

“It is sad and indeed ironic that those who have been accusing taxpayers of living off the fat of the land, are the biggest parasites of the offices which they occupy; doing all this while paying no taxes.” The following Letter to the Editor on Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s …

“Indeed, the government has to find ways to generate some savings, but wholesale attrition of state-owned entities cannot be a forward-looking strategy. “Especially when looking at them from a profit-loss point of view loses a sense of how some of them may contribute to our recovery and our economic prosperity.” …

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley hinted in a recent interview that he wants to reduce expenditure to around TT$50 billion. He also alluded to more taxes or, rather, greater taxation. Additionally, he reiterated his determination to avoid going to the IMF and the World Bank. All this comes against the backdrop …

Trinidad and Tobago Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi looks set to create a new milestone for State idiocracy, wastage of funds and donkey logic, after suggesting that the Government is considering launching a Commission of Enquiry into a Commission of Enquiry. Trinidad and Tobago, we ent going to hell again. We …

In keeping with our efforts to engage readers, Mr Live Wire agreed to answer questions from random guests via Skype. The following were the satirical results: Balisier-baby: Mr Live Wire, I understand the reasoning behind all theses taxes eh. It’s because those crooked UNC politicians thief all we money! But …

If “Santa Colm” assures the populace that their Christmas will be bright, not blue, then we have no reason to doubt the man. After all, Acting Prime Minister Colm Imbert is the substantive Minister of Finance, in which capacity he has access to data and information pertaining to the state …