A three-day Cabinet retreat is set to take place next week in Tobago.
This was revealed on Friday by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, during his appearance on the “Brighter Morning with Bhoe” (MCTV) programme, which was carried live on TTT.
The PM told host Bhoe Tewarie that discussions at the retreat will revolve around a number of key issues, among them subsidies and channelling some of the US$644 million funding which T&T received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to assist small and medium businesses’ recovery efforts.
Rowley said the funding will be used mainly to strengthen T&T’s position going forward, encourage export marketing and fund the recovery that has to be done in many ways.
He noted that the pandemic is pushing T&T to do things and look at things differently – one of those things being the subsidies. He said government is spending a lot on subsidies and such issues have to be addressed frontally.
Rowley said spending 41 per cent on transfers and subsidies cannot continue and if so, T&T would always have to budget to spend money it doesn’t have. Therefore, adjustments to numbers in areas of fiscal allocations have to be made.
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