Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 10/12/2025 18:22

Browne hits 'hodge-podge' Finance Bill

OPPOSITION Senator Dr Amery Browne hit the Finance Bill 2025 as allegedly being "a hodge-podge" produced by a "fake and fraudulent government" that has crashed the economy. He led the opposition's reply to the bill in the Senate on December 9. Claiming the bill had attempted a scatter-shot approach, he said the economy had only survived eight months of incompetence under the UNC thanks to the good works previously done by the former PNM government. Browne said that while the purpose of such a finance bill was to advance the previously presented national budget, this bill contained some measures not floated in the budget. "The government is clueless and incompetent," he said. Alleging hypocritical and contradictory measures in the bill, Browne accused the government of a "tax attack" on the citizenry. "No military radar will assist them in finding their way," he quipped in reference to the US military device installed at the ANR Robinson Airport in Tobago. Saying anyone could talk to small businessmen in Trinidad and Tobago, he said sales were down and that this was now a glum period. "This is not what citizens voted for." Browne claimed certain individuals due to visit TT for training with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association had cancelled their trips, as he wondered at the fate of possible tourists to TT, in a seeming criticism of the handling of the TT/Venezuela tensions. Chiding the government as abysmal in its inability to create jobs, he alleged they had fired 50,00 people (seemingly alluding to the Cepep and URP) yet had the audacity to invite people to apply for state jobs on a website for which he alleged no budgetary allocation had been made. Browne said from 2022-2025 the growth under the former PNM government had been 0.9 per cent, 1.5 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 2.3 per cent (projected), but alleged that within just eight months the new government had created an eight per cent economic decline. He complained that a mansion owner need not pay any property tax but a grandmother just renting out a little room must pay the landlord surcharge. "The government is trying to get milk out of a stone." Saying Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had once vowed to lower the level of traffic fines, Browne accused the government of now running a scheme for revenue collection. Browne made a plug for the entertainment sector, saying they are already facing higher rents and electricity costs, plus rises in alcohol prices. "It could be the final nail in the coffin for this industry." The post Browne hits 'hodge-podge' Finance Bill appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.