At 10.13 am on Tues­day, the prop­er­ty tax line out­side the Board of In­land Rev­enue’s Port-of- Spain com­plex was the longest of three at the front doors to the court­yard.

Signs des­ig­nat­ing lines might have saved se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers dou­ble du­ty guid­ing peo­ple, some of whom ex­pressed con­cern about the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the ac­tiv­i­ty.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case or­gan­i­sa­tion—and at this junc­ture, over­all pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion—skills ar­rives with his 2024/2025 Bud­get.

Pre­sen­ta­tion of Gov­ern­ment’s tenth and fi­nal Bud­get for this term—in a gen­er­al elec­tion year—will be an in­creased spot­light mo­ment for Im­bert af­ter Mon­day’s Par­lia­ment re­sump­tion. Fi­nance sources hint­ed at pos­si­ble Bud­get de­liv­ery by month-end Sep­tem­ber 30 or Sep­tem­ber 23. The 2023 pack­age was de­liv­ered on Sep­tem­ber 26, 2022. They said ei­ther date al­lows for the req­ui­site three weeks of Bud­get scruti­ny by both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee be­fore Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley leaves for Samoa and the Oc­to­ber 21-26 Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing.

PM Row­ley’s ex­pect­ed to speak in the de­bate, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing his Gov­ern­ment’s term’s end and elec­tions. A date an­nounce­ment is ex­pect­ed by Fri­day’s launch of the fifth and fi­nal ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment.

Im­bert’s un­en­vi­able task of bal­anc­ing and bright­en­ing Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nal man­age­ment pre­scrip­tion be­fore elec­tions has to en­sure it meets the ap­proval of 1.4 mil­lion stressed peo­ple, plus lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate re­quire­ments af­ter two gru­elling terms.

It’s ex­pect­ed to be based on the promised new mech­a­nism to es­ti­mate en­er­gy prices rather than the Hen­ry Hub mod­el whose us­age saw a bal­loon­ing 2024 Bud­get deficit by June.

Shad­owed by wors­en­ing crime and its ef­fects on the econ­o­my, Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est step on the elec­tion road with the pack­age will have to ac­count over­all for the term’s per­for­mance. Fi­nan­cial re­port­ing and eco­nom­ic out­look will be com­pared with the con­cern­ing as­sess­ments Im­bert gave in his af­fi­davit in the PSA’s chal­lenge of the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty.

How much cur­rent low­er en­er­gy prices and pro­duc­tion al­low it to be an “elec­tion bud­get“ re­mains ahead. But since it cov­ers the elec­tion year Oc­to­ber 2024 to Sep­tem­ber 2025, a man­i­festo edge is ex­pect­ed.

Pub­lic at­ten­tion will be on costs, in­clud­ing im­ple­ment­ing the Coat of Arms changes and project com­ple­tion—PoS Hos­pi­tal Cen­tral Block, San Fer­nan­do Board­walk, To­ba­go Air­port Ter­mi­nal, and a last quar­ter shift of the In­for­ma­tion di­vi­sion from Mor­vant to the OPM’s St Clair base.

The PNM’s No­vem­ber 17 “troops” con­ven­tion height­ens in­ter­nal elec­tion prep­ping via ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions for 12 posts. Most hold­ers in June sig­nalled seek­ing re-elec­tion. The posts of po­lit­i­cal leader (Row­ley), chair­man (Stu­art Young) and Fos­ter Cum­mings (gen­er­al sec­re­tary) end in 2026.

Im­bert’s Bud­get will re­bound his dimmed pro­file af­ter not be­ing ap­point­ed to act as PM in Row­ley’s ab­sence. Whether this was due to Bud­get fi­nal­i­sa­tion, Young’s ap­point­ment for a sec­ond time em­pha­sised PNM suc­ces­sion plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions. A third ap­point­ment—or not—will say more.

Scruti­ny’s on the five PNM con­stituen­cies the UNC‘s tar­get­ing af­ter its as­sess­ments. While La Hor­quet­ta MP Cum­mings’ “re­ply” is to mount an event to­mor­row, pub­lic polling will give the re­al pic­ture.

UNC’s tar­get­ed re­ten­tion of five of its own seats where there are is­sues, is a re­ply to PNM pri­ori­tis­ing nom­i­nees there—sig­nalling con­cern.

Par­ty strength­en­ing has so far pro­duced some­one tipped to con­test San Fer­nan­do West, for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege prin­ci­pal Dr Michael Dowlat. He spoke at UNC’s Ju­ly San Fer­nan­do Bud­get con­sul­ta­tions and of­fi­cial­ly de­buted on UNC’s plat­form at last Sun­day’s me­dia brief­ing.

An ed­u­ca­tion back­ground favours him to re­place UNC’s ed­u­ca­tion spokesman Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, who is among MP Rush­ton Paray’s es­tranged team from the re­cent in­ter­nal elec­tions. SF West nom­i­na­tions filed in April in­clud­ed from Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, al­so fil­ing for Na­pari­ma.

What­ev­er is un­veiled for Fri­day’s fifth ses­sion launch—PNM Bud­get date or UNC op­por­tu­ni­ty for es­tranged MP Rai Rag­bir’s seat to be shift­ed mi­nus hear­ing of his mat­ter - UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Bud­get re­ply will like­ly in­clude man­i­festo plans.

UNC’s rift with NTA’s Gary Grif­fith has di­vid­ed his at­tacks be­tween PNM and UNC. His vote-split­ting plans tar­get­ing the same seats as the UNC, how­ev­er, now make his fight with UNC ben­e­fi­cial to the PNM.

Af­ter Mon­day’s Par­lia­ment re­sump­tion: much ahead for Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans now with months of po­lit­i­cal life left of the term. And for some—on both sides—none af­ter.