THE Opposition says Finance Minister Colm Imbert has many questions to answer in his 2023 mid-year budget review presentation in Parliament. It believes the government has been using "statistical conmanship" to fool the country.

Speaking at the UNC's press conference in Port of Spain on Monday morning, UNC chairman Davendranath Tancoo said despite there being over $418 billion in expenditure, the economy remains "substantially smaller" than when the PNM came into power in 2015.

He said the economic crisis is "essentially due to every single action taken by this Minister of Finance (Colm Imbert) and his PNM government."

He added that he rejects all attempts by the government to mislead and misdirect the public's attention from the true state of the economy.

The government, he said, is trying to "mislead the country with a false claim of growth, which every citizen knows to be untrue," while refusing to answer questions about expenditure.

Tancoo said it is no surprise that government revenue "is not going to be what was expected" and called on Imbert to "tell the country the truth.

"The government failed to be honest about expenditure and knowingly left out substantial, predictable and known financial commitments."

He said people continue to experience a fall in their standard of living and quality of life, adding that it's not that the government is unaware people are suffering and losing hope but that it did not care.

"The government believes that they could fool you over and over and mislead you so that you would forget the state-sponsored corruption that has robbed taxpayers of billions of dollars annually."

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