The text of Prime Minister Patrick Manning's 2006-2007 Budget Speech as was presented in the House of Representatives on Wednesday 4th, 2006.

INTRODUCTION

Mr Speaker, I rise to present to this Honourable House and the Nation, the Appropriation Bill for fiscal year 2007.

Mr Speaker, for me it is an honour to present this, the fifth Budget Statement of this People's National Movement Administration.

Mr Speaker, on behalf of the Government I wish to thank all the individuals and organisations, in the public and private sectors, as well as the civil society organisations who have contributed to the formulation of this Budget. I must pay tribute to the hard working and dedicated officers in the public sector who continue to provide exceptional service to all our citizens. The quality of their work is evident in the accompanying documents which form part of the national Budget process. These public officers must be commended for their professionalism.

I must also express my gratitude to my Cabinet colleagues and other members of the Government for their contributions and invaluable input.

Mr Speaker, Trinidad and Tobago is rich in natural resources, specifically oil and natural gas, and the challenge is to ensure that while we build a stronger economy, the gains for some do not come at the expense of others, but all our citizens share in our country's economic success.

As a result, we have given priority to the investment of our oil and gas revenue in the key public services of education, health, housing and national security. We are also investing in the social services; building stronger communities; and upgrading infrastructure. We aim to develop a country that boasts of world class public services which are easily and readily available to all our citizens.

Mr Speaker, the current transformation of Trinidad and Tobago is the most ambitious in the history of our nation but we still have much further to travel; with so much untapped potential and so many unsatisfied needs, we owe it to ourselves to build on our recent achievements.

Our future course of action must accomplish therefore, a proper path towards sustainable, lasting and equitable economic growth – growth that serves broad social objectives over the long term or what I call high quality growth.

Mr Speaker, in 2001 when this administration re-entered office, we embarked on a journey to make Trinidad and Tobago a developed country in the shortest possible time.

We knew that, despite the availability of our financial resources, this journey would not be easy because it meant confronting a sometimes unfriendly international environment; in many cases, changing deeply-entrenched tendencies, dealing with some self-centered agendas and addressing our own perception of ourselves.

Mr Speaker, for some time this Government has been advocating a foreign policy position which has at its core the protection of Trinidad and Tobago's sovereignty. We have been at the forefront of many international initiatives one of which has been honouring our commitment to the International Criminal Court of Justice.

In doing so we have had to reiterate our position even in the face of being denied participation in US military training programmes for the last four years.

However, Mr Speaker, we remained steadfast in our position and took every opportunity both here and abroad to reaffirm that position. Mr Speaker, just last week on my visit to Washington to address some members of the Congress I again made the position of Trinidad and Tobago quite clear.

Mr Speaker, our position on this issue has been vindicated because just yesterday, the Government of the United States announced that Trinidad and Tobago is among 21 countries which have been granted a Presidential waiver of the US requirement for exemption from Article 98 of the International Criminal Court.

For the last five years, we have journeyed on, facing many setbacks; some of those we anticipated and indeed some new ones that we had not envisaged. But through it all we have stuck to our mission and we have achieved many successes. But the journey is long and we still have far to go; we recognise this and we intend to continue to move ahead.

Mr Speaker it is for this reason that the Government has chosen as the theme of this year's budget, Vision 2020: Moving Onward.

Mr Speaker, the strategy employed to achieve Vision 2020 is to use the revenue derived from the high international prices currently being obtained for our energy resources, to develop a non-energy economy that is diversified, dynamic, internationally competitive; one capable of generating self-sustaining growth with high quality jobs and improved services to all our population.

We recognised from the onset, that in order to do this we needed to develop innovative people, to encourage a competitive business climate, upgrade and modernise our physical infrastructure, and to promote effective government to drive the process.

But our Vision 2020 Plan mandates even more than that. In particular, Mr Speaker, for us it implies the nurturing of a caring society that ensures that poverty is rapidly reduced and eliminated; that the foundation of our society continues to be based on the creation of strong families with high moral and ethical values; that all our citizens have access to adequate and affordable housing and first class health-care that enable them to live healthy lifestyles; and that we put in place systems to support the most vulnerable in our society.

This Budget builds on what we have been doing towards the achievement of these objectives and is designed to guarantee the security of our country's future.

This is our vision and this we will achieve.