CAPRI launches budget report

The Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) will launch its Budget Breakdown 2025 report on Thursday, delving into the government’s recently announced budget.

The launch is open to the public and will take place at The UWI Regional Headquarters, from 6 to 7 p.m., and it will also be streamed live via CAPRI’s YouTube Channel.

The report is titled: ‘Where’s your money going in this election year’, and promises to highlight several important shifts in the government’s proposed revenue and expenditure, including revenue decline, government spending priorities, fiscal risks, and sustainability against global uncertainties and natural disasters.

Executive director of CAPRI, Dr Damien King, will be joined by Minister of Finance Fayval Williams in a one-on-one discussion on the report’s findings, and explore the implications of such particularly in a general election year. The discussion will also explore key trends, policy priorities, and real-world impact on Jamaica, CAPRI has promised.

Yesterday, CAPRI’s director of research, Diana Thorburn, said the report covers several years of analysis, and tracks trends in ways that are not usually done in local research.

“We have consistently applied the same research framework to the Budget which is to go beyond the surface numbers and the headlines and identify the patterns from previous years, comparing expenditure and indicators over time,” explained Thorburn, adding that the discussion provides the public the opportunity to hear from the recently installed finance minister.

“She is going to be placed under more than just political or public pressure. She is going to be challenged to be quite intellectual at this ... We are going to get a chance to see what the new minister is made of. It’s both form and content.

Thorburn said the report “pulls out the numbers that matter” from the Budget, a document that contains scores of pages, technical jargon, and explanations that generally the public would not understand. “But if you have a template of an analytical framework that you can apply to it, which is what we do consistently, then you can pull out the numbers that matter.”

“One of the things this report is going to point out is the shift from indirect to direct taxes and what the implications are. In a country like Jamaica where half of the workforce does not pay taxes, shifting to direct taxes punishes taxpayers because it means we are now carrying more of the tax burden whereas the tax evaders continue to get away for free,” she explained.