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By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Carmen Berkley, a strategist with a Seattle-based foundation advocating equity and racial justice, remembers meeting Harry Belafonte a decade ago when she […]
Imbert said the government will adjust the criteria for accessing GATE. He said students with good standing, enrolled in accredited institutions and programmes will qualify if they completed an initial programme of study.#ttbudget2023
— T&T Newsday (@Newsday_TT) September 26, 2022
3 GOVT GUARANTEED LOANS FOR THE HDC totaling to $1.5 billion.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert said $500 million will be used for stalled or existing projects, $500 mil for debt owed to contractors and $500 mil for the construction of new housing units. @Newsday_TT
— Narissa Fraser (@rhopico) September 26, 2022
He said the difference in revenue would be better spent in social grants, where $5.4 billion is spent per year, food support, on which $175 million is utilised, disability grants at $630 million, and social assistance grants, which cost $355 million.https://t.co/9lsgAsolSF
Finance Minister Colm Imbert said the government has allocated $300m for agricultural incentives, infrastructure and programmes.#ttbudget2023
Finance Minister Colm Imbert says that right now, the 4 % proposed increase in wages to public sector workers is the best the government can do.#Budget2023 @Newsday_TT
Finance Minister Colm Imbert says that right now, the 4 % proposed
SiriusXM is the latest radio station to suspend Brett Favre's show amid accusations he is involved in a welfare fraud scandal in Mississippi.
The post Brett Favre Loses Radio Shows Amid Widening Mississippi Welfare Fraud Scandal appeared first on NewsOne.
FROM near-record highs in May, fuelled by the Russia/Ukraine war, world energy prices plunged sharply by five per cent overnight between Thursday and Friday, casting fresh doubt on any expected “goodies” a stressed out population can expect in Monday’s budget.
West Texas Intermediary (WTI) oil prices fell by almost a quarter from US$97 in late August, to US$78 on Friday. Natural gas fell from US$9.36 MMBtu to US$6.85 MMBtu.
Energy prices are where they were a year ago, before shooting up over supply fears due to a European embargo on Russian oil and gas, since snapped up by China and India at cut-prices.
All this as the world faces a recession amid food shortages blamed on the protracted war in eastern Europe, plus post-pandemic public debts locally and globally.
Economist Vaalmiki Arjoon recently told Newsday of “a deepening cost-of-living crisis,” for the middle- and lower-income brackets, with the highest prices being seen by many in decades.
Food relief will be sought, after the last budget’s VAT cut on biscuits, cooking oil, ketchup, bottled water, and pigtail.
Last month, thousands of workers protested in Port of Spain against stalled wage negotiations as trade unions rejected the CPO’s four per cent offer for 2014-2019, with OWTU head Ancel Roget threatening to “shut this blasted place down.”
The Prime Minister has already said (in the Government’s Spotlight on the Economy event in September) that high energy prices would likely not last.
He had said TT must make best use of its finite resources to look after its people, but that does not include any entitlement to cheap fuel.
Economist Dr Marlene Attz recently told Newsday that TT was in “a very uncertain economic time” where bigger economies could intervene to flatten global energy prices.
“It is unsustainable for us to assume a windfall in perpetuity. We don’t know when the windfall will end.”
The Energy Chamber urged boosted gas production by incentivising firms to explore, by quicker bid rounds, more tax breaks (VAT, royalties), help for small and mature field development, and help to cut the carbon intensity of operations (eg in methane emissions and flaring).
Divert gas from domestic electricity generation by way of energy efficiency and renewables, it added.
The chamber advocated more cross-border supplies, saying flared gas in the North Monagas oilfields in eastern Venezuela exceeded TT’s shortfall.
The Government will also likely promote non-energy diversification: manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, and the creative sector. TT Manufacturers Association (TTMA) head Tricia Coosal told Newsday on Friday in a text message, “The TTMA looks forward to the reading of the 2022/23 fiscal package with great anticipation.
“As the TTMA pursues its goal of doubling local non-energy exports by 2025, it is our hope the Government continues to support this thrust towards diversification as has been done in previous budgets.”
Another revenue source, recently mooted by Arjoon, was better tax collection.
Imbert told the spotlight
Photos courtesy of Getty Images Since launching the Side Lot program in 2014, the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) has sold more than 21,000 vacant lots to Detroit homeowners, which is more than other cities across the country. The DLBA is invested in rehabbing vacant and blighted buildings, returning them to productive use. Residents … Continued
The EPA is opening a new office that it says will double down on environmental justice efforts.
The post EPA's New Environmental Justice Office Pledges 'Billions' For 'Those Who Need It The Most appeared first on NewsOne.
The Prime Minister says the Government is offering public servants a four per cent wage increase because that is what the country could afford.
Speaking at a press conference at the Red House after the 2023 budget on Monday, Dr Rowley said, 'I don't have any problem with people advocating for the best for them, but at the end of the day there has to be reason.'
This after, the Industrial Court granted the Minister of Labour an ex-parte injunction, on Sunday, ordering teachers to go to work rather than engaging in industrial action planned for Monday.
He said he was aware public servants had not had a salary increase for a long time but the government had already borrowed $6 billion to pay public servants back pay, and money for anything more than four per cent was not available.
And if the unions did not agree with the four per cent, the final decision would be with the Industrial Court, not the Government.
Rowley also said he believed the Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert, presented the best national budget in eight years.
'Not very long ago we were in a situation that was dire and it largely had to do with our accustomed expenditure level and finding ourselves in a situation of significantly reduced revenues.'
He said the country had to go into a lot of debt to keep public servants' jobs and the economy going during the pandemic. And TT's situation improved mainly because of external factors outside of the government's control, specifically the Russian/ Ukraine war, which increased oil prices.
The budget was based on an oil price of US$92.50 a barrel and gas price of $US6 per MMBtu. As such, the 2023 budget deficit was less than one per cent, which, according to the PM, was a very good position to be in.
He said because energy prices fluctuate, the country's economic situation was temporary so the government had to monitor the situation and be cautious. However, he said, if oil prices collapse and the revenue did not 'pan out' as the Minister of Finance anticipated, the deficit would increase but 'it would not kill us.'
The post Rowley: 4% wage offer is what country can afford appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
Trumpish state legislators are introducing laws to make it illegal to teach anything that might make white students experience “discomfort.” One Texas lawmaker demanded information from schools on 850 books he thought were suspect; his list included works on history and human rights. In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin set up an email hotline for people to report teachers suspected of “divisive” practices.
The post COMMENTARY: Book Bans Are an Attack on the Freedom to Read, Teach and Learn first appeared on Post News Group.
ATLANTA (AP) — The tale ofbreached voting equipmentin one of the country’s most important political battleground states involves a bail bondsman, a prominent attorney tied to former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and a cast of characters from a rural county that rarely draws notice from outsiders. How they all […]
The post Georgia voting equipment breach at center of tangled tale appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert said the government will fund a new long-term loan guarantee scheme for small and medium enterprises.
Speaking during the budget presentation for 2023 on Monday, Imbert said the project will be managed by First Citizens Bank, in collaboration with other commercial banks.
“We are funding $500 million in partnership with commercial banks, a new long-term loan guarantee scheme for SMEs. The government guarantee will be up to 80 per cent of the value of the loans for up to ten years, inclusive of a two-year moratorium on repayments, and will focus on the non-energy sector.”
He said this will be in addition to a number of facilities put in place by government, including the gateway to trade programme, the export booster initiative, the grant fund facility in eight designated sectors, and the SME mentorship programme.
A full tax holiday will be granted for the first six years, business levy and green fund levy, and a 50 per cent reduction in taxes for the next five years.
He said government will expand the forex facility for manufacturers through the Exim Bank.
“One hundred and 36 manufacturers, with 118, or 34 per cent of these, falling into the SME categories, have accessed a total of US$395 million under the Exim Bank forex manufacturing facility. Eighty-seven importers will have access to a total of US$488 million to supply the nation with food, sanitary products, pharmaceuticals, PPE, and other essential supplies, through the essential supplies forex window.”
The post Budget snippet: $500m in loan guarantees for SMEs appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
By Godfrey Lee The life of the late Mrs. Elberta Julia Eriksson, BCD, MFT, LCSW was honored at the Marin City Senior Center in Marin City on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. She passed away on May 9, 2022. The service was well attended by the community. Terrie Green, Indie B, Kahaya Adams, […]
The post IN MEMORIAM: Elberta Eriksson’s Life Honored in Marin City first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
