A tense debate unfolded during the Standing Finance Committee’s review of Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of People and Social Development $5.1 billion 2026/2027 budget allocation, as opposition lawmakers pressed Minister Vandana Mohit to reconcile planned across-the-board $250 social welfare grant increases with deep cuts to senior citizen and disability grant funding lines.
Opposition members centered their questioning on significant reductions to two core grant programs: a yet-unquantified cut to the Senior Citizens’ Grant allocation and a $73 million reduction to disability grant funding, which would see the program receive $547 million instead of the prior $621 million revised estimate. Lawmakers raised urgent concerns that the reduced budgets would leave the ministry unable to deliver the promised increase to existing beneficiaries while also clearing a long-standing backlog of new applications, leaving vulnerable populations at risk of lost or delayed support.
Mohit pushed back against opposition criticism, framing the funding cuts as a deliberate outcome of an ongoing ministry-wide cleanup of systemic mismanagement that has allowed millions of dollars in public funds to be wasted annually. She attributed the waste to inaccurate beneficiary records, administrative gaps, and lingering structural deficiencies inherited from the previous People’s National Movement administration, arguing that rooting out ineligible recipients and correcting flawed data would free up sufficient resources to cover the promised increase without harming qualifying beneficiaries.
The debate grew particularly heated during repeated questioning from Opposition MP Camille Robinson-Regis, who pressed Mohit for clarity on how a reduced budget could accommodate higher per-recipient payments and a projected growth in total senior grant beneficiaries from the current 118,121 to 124,000. After three repeated assurances that no eligible recipient would lose support, Mohit rejected what she framed as aggressive pressure from Robinson-Regis, noting “You wouldn’t bully me, member” and asserting that committee chair Jagdeo Singh, not the opposition, set the terms of questioning.
Additional questions from opposition lawmakers covered processing backlogs, eligibility rules, and a $23 million reduction to the Children’s Authority allocation. Mohit acknowledged that a growing backlog of unprocessed applications has pushed average processing times beyond the mandated 90-day target, blaming the backlog on a long-standing hiring freeze left by the previous administration that left dozens of critical positions unfilled. She confirmed that no changes to the existing means-tested eligibility criteria are currently proposed, and clarified that the $23 million cut to the Children’s Authority budget only reflects the completion of one-time payments for outstanding audit-identified arrears, with the new $150 million allocation representing a return to normal operating funding.
Throughout the session, Mohit repeatedly emphasized that the Ministry of Finance has pledged full cooperation to address any unforeseen funding gaps, and reaffirmed that the $250 increase will be applied to all three of the ministry’s core grants — Senior Citizens’ Grants, Disability Grants, and Public Assistance Grants — as promised by Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo in the 2026/2027 budget presentation.