Economist Robert Mayers, who is a deputy political leader of the Congress of the People (COP), says that while the 2009/2010 Budget should be lower than $40 billion, he doubts that this would happen.

Mayers said the budget may not be lower than $40 billion because of the level of the Government’s capital expenditure on projects, including the high-rise buildings still under construction in downtown Port of Spain, and there is unlikely to be any cuts in spending on social programmes such as the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP).

’Remember, people are hurting and remember, a government, while you have your economy to deal with, you also have your politics to deal with because that is the nature of government, and the situation is that it would be difficult for any government to want to cut on the social side, so you’ve got to look at your capital expenditure,’ Mayers said.

Mayers made his comments in an interview with the Sunday Express at the Normandie Hotel, St Ann’s, after attending a media conference held by the COP political leader and former Central Bank governor Winston Dookeran.

He said ’the little bit of money that you have for capital expenditure’ should be directed into areas where ’you can have maximum benefit to the country’.

’We don’t need any tall buildings. Tall buildings don’t produce one cent of income. As a matter of fact, they drain you because you have to maintain it,’ Mayers said.

Last year, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira had announced a budget of close to $50 billion for the 2008/2009 financial year, but this expenditure figure was adjusted downwards twice since then due to the international financial crisis.

Mayers was asked if a budget that is much less than the original $50 billion expenditure projected for the existing fiscal year would be ideal for the 2009/ 2010 Budget, ’That would be the ideal, but you have to understand that people have to live, so you have your fixed expenditure, your recurrent expenditure, your salaries to public servants and so on that has to continue.’

He added that the ’capital expenditure is where you have to look at’ since any projects such as tall buildings that do not bring in any income should be shelved and the money for them be rechannelled into ’non-energy areas’.

’Don’t put no more money into energy. Any energy projects like that come from foreign direct investment,’ Mayers said.

-Juhel Browne