TRINIDAD-BUDGET-Opposition leader critical of budget, says there can be no prosperity without safety.

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar, Friday dismissed the government's TT$59.2 billion (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) national budget as nothing more than 'skulduggery'.

'This budget is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because even as I speak today, even as we are here, comfortably ensconced in this chamber talking highfalutin talk about the economy, some innocent citizen will be robbed and murdered,' Persad Bissessar said, blaming the Keith Rowley administration for implementing socio-economic policies that have not beneffited the citizenry since it came to office eight years ago. She said Finance Minister Colm Imbert continues to make poor decisions and even poorer projections and expects the population to believe him.

'Nobody in this country believes him. Nobody in this country believes this government,' said persad Bissessar, saying people now believe that to get ahead, they must be in some form of skulduggery 'and the government is leading this by example'.

She said what is before the country 'is a population that has reached boiling point,' adding 'people are totally fed up. nothing works, and no one in government cares to fix it'.

Persad Bissessar who spent the majority of her rebuttal to the budget recalling measures that she said had been implemented by her People's Partnership government between 2010-15, said every sector of the economy has declined since 2015.

'Small businesses are suffering, and their owners are literally falling sick just in their efforts to make an honest dollar. 'Workers and unions, just because they're trying to save themselves from drowning, they're treated like enemies of the state.

'Everywhere you look, people have reached raging frustration. They're fuming mad, they're short-tempered, and many have a constant angry facial expression.

'Every single day, there are home invasions somewhere; there is murder somewhere, there is vandalism somewhere. Everyday there is extortion. Everyday. Why is this normal? Everyone has run out of patience with this government,' she told legislators.

'And I dare this government to tell me otherwise. I dare this Government to challenge me when I say that people have become psychologically downtrodden, beaten, and abused because of all the grotesque social problems they have caused'.

She said that the crime situation had reached the stage where criminals are at war with innocent citizens whom the Government have left the citizens to fend for themselves.

She warned there can be...