00:00During day two of the debate of the 2026-2027 budget in the House of Representatives on a
00:07Saturday, Opposition MP and former Finance Minister Colm Inbert outlined the PNM's concerns
00:12about the local economy. Why would the businesses in Trinidad and Tobago not borrow money? Why?
00:19Obviously no confidence. You don't have to read and spell. Business loans were $26.8 billion in
00:27May 2025 and $27 billion in July 2026. Flat. Nobody borrowed any new money over the last
00:3618 months, Mr. Speaker. Business is not borrowing. Why? Because they have no confidence in the UNC.
00:47MP Inbert referred to economic data to support his point, as he said businesses and individuals
00:52are holding back cash rather than spending or investing.
00:56And the government is not helping, you know. Government capital spending dropped by almost
01:0250% in fiscal 2026, Mr. Speaker. Foreign direct investment, it's disappearing, Mr. Speaker.
01:12In fiscal 2025, calendar 2025, U.S. $794 million in investment left Trinidad and Tobago. It went
01:22out. It disappeared. Foreign and Caracom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers later offered the government's
01:28position that it is receiving interest for investment in the local economy.
01:34All these people recognizing that we have all this gas that is going to come into Trinidad and Tobago,
01:40get Atlantic up and running again, get all these plants in Point Leases up and running again,
01:47get all of these investments that are coming in with respect to the data centers, with respect to the
01:54steel plant, all of these banks coming back to Trinidad and Tobago, this large amount of investment
02:02coming here. That is because people have confidence in what the member of Separi is doing.
02:10The Foreign and Caracom Affairs Minister then made reference to the former PNM-led government.
02:16Not a single investment coming out of conversations with the PNM. Just talk, talk, talk,
02:22and corruption, corruption, corruption. That is the hallmark of the PNM. We don't say that.
02:29When I'm in a room as Foreign Minister and meeting with investors, just as I was yesterday,
02:35that's what they tell us. And they could call the names of certain people for nefarious conduct,
02:43which I won't do here, because that information has already been passed to the Attorney General
02:49and passed to the Commissioner of Police. Minister Sobers spoke of what he identified as a difference
02:54with the UNC government, led by Prime Minister Kamala Pesad-Besasa, the MP for Separi.
02:59They could equally, Mr. Speaker, call the names of the ministers in this administration
03:06who do human service for the people of this country. All of the ministers, every single one of them,
03:13every single one of them. When they speak about them, Mr. Speaker, it's in gluing terms. These people
03:21know what they're doing, and we like to deal with them. And that's why these things are taking off.
03:26Trinidad and Tobago is being described as the hottest new thing in the Western Hemisphere.
03:32And we will take that under the leadership of the member of Separi.
03:38The lower house's budget debate continued on Saturday evening. Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
