Budget 2021 - Undoing Five Years of PNM Mismanagement
In analysing the 2021 Budget presentation and the COVID-19 recovery measures currently in place to salvage our economy, there is one point in particular that needs to be addressed. With the current explosion of both patients and fatalities that have succumbed to this pandemic, it cannot be understated that the three months of maximum lockdown instituted by the PNM administration earlier this year did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent the spread of the virus. This is important to consider, because much of the economic problems we face today, though not entirely, are a direct result of the government's decision to implement this failed measure. Even now, with a limited lockdown in effect, the only things these measures have prevented are the return of our citizens who have been stranded outside our shores for months, and the revenue that small and medium sized businesses would have ordinarily generated to provide an income for their owners and employees.
Further to this however, with the exception of additional taxes on the horizon, such as the Property Tax, the complete removal of fuel subsidies and the increase in the retirement age, it was jarring to witness this PNM administration roll-back or completely reverse key decisions made during their first term in government. Similar to the decision to remove the taxes on computers that they themselves implemented only two years prior, this PNM administration now seeks to reimplement the laptop programme for students that they cut, create incentives for farmers that they neglected, and create tax breaks for manufacturers and private citizens who were all but ignored in the past five years. Colm Imbert has devised a budget not dissimilar to the one the PNM announced immediately after coming into government in their first term, with the goal of dismantling the "accomplishments" of the previous administration. But the fact that they would do this to themselves in their second term has me considering the possibility that for the next five years we can expect the Prime Minister to constantly blame Keith Rowley for the failures they will undoubtedly experience.
It was also interesting that the Minister spoke specifically to the incentives that will be given to scrap iron dealers, as Vasant Bharath recently announced that he had been lobbying on their behalf. One can only suspect therefore that the subject was recommended and approved through the submissions made by the COVID-19 Recovery committee on which Mr. Bharath was invited to sit. The reason I bring this up however, is because Mr. Bharath has also been publicly protesting the implementation of the Property Tax at this time, given the current economic turmoil facing the population, which is in stark contrast to the recommendations of the same committee which wholeheartedly endorsed the Tax, and also suggested the widening of the tax net as a whole. If Mr. Bharath continues to pretend that he is in fact opposed to the tax whenever he speaks in public therefore, he should make it known whether or not he objected to it while he sat on the Committee, because as it stands now, and as he was successful in his solicitations on behalf of other interests, it begs the question of where his loyalties truly lie.
When Colm Imbert spoke about the moratoriums he was able to negotiate for persons suffering through the economic crisis he created to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, it appeared that he either did not know or chose to ignore the fact that only days ago a known entertainer was almost forced out of his home when the bank sought to foreclose on his property. And it is this type of ignorance with which this the PNM has been operating, that has created the situation that so many others like Mr. Errol Fabien are forced to confront today. Because while the banks and financial institutions might have furloughed payments on loans and mortgages during the lockdown, because those debtors were not earning revenue, they would be in the same or even worse positions at the time the bank chooses to restart collections. Similar to the incentives the PNM are promising to farmers and persons seeking to engage in agriculture, where the government might be able to provide grants or loans to unsuspecting individuals thinking that they have all they need to start their new career. It is only when they are faced with floods, shortage of agricultural lands, unregulated markets and a lack of resources by the very same government to assist them and allow them to grow will they realise that they were better off before they ventured into the field. And that is the unfortunate reality which surrounds every half baked idea that the PNM have envisioned in the past five years, and the reason that the country has been unable to grow or develop in any meaningful way.
If you are familiar with The Emperor's New Clothes written by Hans Christian Anderson, you would be aware of the tailors who "crafted" the suit for the Emperor to wear in the story, and how it all turned out. And looking at the Budget as presented by Colm Imbert, it appears that he took notes from those tailors, and is now using their methods to peddle PNM propaganda to the people. As a result, you have people walking around naked thinking the government has given them clothes, you have people who are starving thinking the government has given them food, you have children thinking the government is giving them an education, you have the sick thinking the government has given them healthcare, you have farmers thinking the government has given them incentives, you have a country of desperate people thinking the government has given them hope, and in reality none of them are better off than they were six years ago. And the reality is that even if the end of this term the PNM reverts everything back to the way it was in 2015, we would still have lost ten years of progress and development and would continue to be at a disadvantage to the rest of the world in that regard.
Best regards,
Ravi Balgobin Maharaj