A $15-$20 minimum wage; a farmer’s insurance scheme; an increase in the disability grant; an increase in the old-age grant to $3,000, indexing of it to inflation; an increase in the compensation of victims of crime from the current limit of $25,000 to $250,000; and the stopping of the Alutrint plant.

These are among the promises and counterproposals presented by Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday, as he yesterday concluded his reply to the 2009/2010 Budget presented on Monday by Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira.

Panday said a United National Congress government would also increase the allowance for approved deferred annuity, increase the limit on pensions to $5,000, to allow pensioners to access the old-age grant and NIS pension, and establish an insurance scheme for farmers whose crops are damaged.

Panday, who sniffed, sneezed and coughed his way throughout his three-hour presentation, said the UNC would also legalise the Special Anti-crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT), appoint more judges and magistrates, computerise the police, court and licensing division, implement the breathalyser law, appoint a DPP and Solicitor General and employ CEPEP workers in agriculture and manufacturing sectors.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who listened and took notes during Panday’s contribution, seemed amused.

’He will bankrupt the Treasury,’ Nunez-Tesheira told Manning, as Panday read out his list of proposals.

But Panday spent most of his time criticising Government’s budget. He slammed the motor vehicle-related taxes.

Saying that the penalties were based on the ’presumption of continued lawlessness’, Panday said: ’This is the first time I have seen the success of a budget based on an increase in crime.’

He said the UNC philosophy was premised on the simple code-low taxation, high compliance. But Panday predicted that the fines would have no effect on the road carnage because there were simply not enough police officers available for these fines to make a difference.

He said the increase in fines therefore represented ’a desperate attempt by a Government on the ropes, to grab money from anywhere possible to fund its squandermania. From a $50 billion budget last year to picking the pockets of motorists to fill the void caused by squandermania, how far we have fallen, and so fast’.

He said the property tax was regressive and would discourage home ownership. He said after Government had encouraged many persons to acquire homes via the National Housing Authority (NHA) and Housing Development Corporation (HDC), offering them grants and loans, ’like a thief in the night it had now blindsided them’ with the property tax.

’The punitive effect of this tax will be felt most by those who built in what were once rural areas like Princes Town, Couva, which have become towns and those who live along the major roadways of the country,’ he stated.

He added that those pensioners who had saved their money and invested it in the homes would be hard-pressed to pay these taxes on a fixed and low income.

Panday said it was ’shameless’ that the current Minister of Finance had been reduced to ’extracting from her predecessor’s bag of broken promises to pad her budget speech’. Among the repeated, broken promises were the pledge to establish a praedial larceny squad, the promise to increase CNG stations, and the promise to construct the Point Fortin hospital.

Quoting from the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 Budget speeches on the Point Fortin hospital, Panday said, ’They did not build it in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and they certainly will not build it in 2010,’ to loud table-thumping. He also cited the promises to build several highways ’or is it the highway of promises?’

Panday said the 2009/ 2010 Budget continued in the vein of the past seven budgets: making false promises Government had made before, but which it never intended to keep even when it had all the money in the world. ’Do you think they will keep these promises now when money is scarce?’ he asked.

Panday also lambasted the Government on the issue of corruption. He promised that a UNC Government would investigate ’with intent to pursue criminal charges based on the current revelations of the UFF Commission of Enquiry into UDeCOTT and the construction sector. There is no reason to wait until the commission submits the report... The DPP should act now’.

He said the budget was premised on a lie.

’Having safely extricated herself from the fate of other less fortunate CL Financial depositors, the Minister seems to have lost sight of what the real challenges facing this country are,’ he said, adding that the budget made no attempt to address runaway crime, massive corruption in the State sector, poverty, sabotage of the agricultural sector, inefficient health sector, high food prices, massive flooding, etc.

Noting that Nunez-Tesheira patted Government on the back for ’sound fiscal discipline and management of the economy’, Panday said: ’Mr Speaker, joke is joke, but does the Minister really believe that the population is so stupid as to swallow that?’

He recalled that when Nunez-Tesheira presented the last budget, she had to review it within weeks and still ended up with a deficit larger than the one predicted.

’I like this Minister. She appears to be smiling in the face of every adversity,’ he said.

Panday said the insistence of Government to continue the same level of expenditure could never be justified.

’I am sorry to say this but it is simply stupid,’ he said.

Noting that public debt in the period of two years had been increased by a massive $16.2 billion, the Opposition Leader said: ’This can be nothing short of gross fiscal mismanagement. I predict the Minister’s freehandedness with the public’s money will result in a deficit in 2010 of more than the $7.7 billion she claims here today.’

Panday said the PNM had taken the country from ’riches to rags’ once more.