While the Gov­ern­ment has not yet an­nounced when the 2025-2026 na­tion­al bud­get will be pre­sent­ed, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert sus­pects it could be de­liv­ered next Mon­day.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Im­bert point­ed to par­lia­men­tary time­lines and re­vised stand­ing or­ders, which pre­vent the Gov­ern­ment from spend­ing mon­ey be­yond Oc­to­ber 31. He added that based on his ex­pe­ri­ence, the bud­get ex­er­cise re­quires rough­ly 20 days to com­plete.

“A nor­mal gov­ern­ment would have in­di­cat­ed by now that the bud­get would be in the next cou­ple of days. I ex­pect that if they are be­hav­ing nor­mal­ly, it will be on the 6th of Oc­to­ber. With the new stand­ing or­ders, you have to give the leader of the op­po­si­tion three clear days. I al­ways had the bud­get on a Mon­day, so the three clear days would have been Tues­day, Wednes­day, and Thurs­day, and then the leader of the op­po­si­tion be­gins on Fri­day.”