ST. VINCENT-BUDGET-Opposition Leader dismisses budget as “old announcements, reheated and dished out again.’

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Opposition Leader Godwin Friday said the EC$1.44 billion (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) budget presented by Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves on Monday night is equivalent to “old announcements, reheated and dished out again.”

Friday told Parliament as debate began that after the presentation by Gonsalves, he experienced the “less charitable” feeling that people are sometimes “provoked” into after hoping that the goodwill of Christmas lasts throughout the year.

“I don’t know how much of it he wrote because I know sometimes I heard him stumbling as he was reading certain sections, suggesting a bit of unfamiliarity with it,” Friday said, adding that Gonsalves did not “entertain the simplest of questions” when an opposition legislator asked him to which actuarial study he had referred.

“But, by and large, he read it well. He read a script well,” Friday said, noting that Gonsalves called the fiscal package many things, including “a jobs budget.

“But it is clear after listening to that, like many other things from this government, this is simply a case of a lot of promises. There’s a lot of assumptions but little in the way of actual delivery,” Friday said.

“The minister, it seems to me, wants to get credit for his government’s intentions rather than for their actions. It is clear that when something good happens, you have a cheerful piece of news you want to brag about, and you quickly take credit for it.

“When something negative happens, things ain’t going the right way. It’s a result of factors beyond their control. It’s never their policy. It’s never an error. It’s never a mistake. It’s never something that you could have done better.”

Friday, however, said he lives “in the real world here in this country” and knows what people are going through.

“I go about St. Vincent and Grenadines. I meet people. I talk to them on the street. Some people say I’m too accessible. And from that experience, the overwhelming issues that I gather facing this country are the high cost of living, the high unemployment, and, of course, the high crime.’

He said despite that. The Finance Minister did not set out anything in his five-hour presentation “that came close to any comprehensive plan for dealing with these critical issues in the future.

“Much of what he said was things he spoke about the previous budget — old announcements, reheated and dished out again. Some will say it’s a case of a more commonplace expression — old wine in new bottles,” Friday said, noting that this year’s budget provided for a national youth advisory council.

He reminded Parliament that last year, the fiscal package, which Gonsalves called a “youth budget,” an “important goal” was “the reinvigoration” of the National Youth Council (NYC).

The Opposition Leader said that if the government continues its policy to re-invigorate NYC, then Gonsalves should have noted that the national youth advisory committee is an addition to this.

“But it seems to me it’s suggesting that they’ve moved on. Why should? Therefore, do young people or anybody believe what the minister says there and elsewhere in the budget?”

Friday said there are “too many glib comments, too many empty promises, things that sound nice that have no bearing in reality.

“There are downright lies that are printed in the pages of the Budget and the Estimates,” Friday said, adding that the opposition repeatedly addressed the issue because it is essential, but “the government just ignores it because they feel the people in the country are not paying attention to it.

“But we have a greater responsibility than that if we understand the importance of doing it right because somebody may be able to get away with it.”

Friday said this year’s budget is more significant, as is the case annually. Tax revenue, non-tax revenue, grants, external loans, local loans, and capital revenue will fund it. That is what they know of, and other capital receipts.

“The sinister part of this is the category of Other Receipts, which, this year, amounts to EC$226 million,” Friday said, adding that last year, “Other Receipts” amounted to EC$265 million, or just over 15 percent of the total budget “that they don’t know where the money comes from.”

Friday said that what is clear is that what the government receives under “Other Receipts” “is a pittance compared to what is stated that they would receive…

“I know it’s put there as a balancing or some accounting figure to try and make the budget balance. You can’t present a budget that doesn’t balance.

“I will never tire of speaking of it because I can’t imagine how you can know this, put it in there and then present it to the people and say, listen, this is what we’re going to implement when you know that EC$225 million are short and you’re going to have to cut certain things.”

He said the government should be honest with the people and present a fiscal package that is EC$225 million less than it did.

“It shouldn’t have this falsehood that has been perpetuated year after year to make the budget process look so trivial, so unimportant that you do something like that and not respond to the queries that members make on this side.

“So when people see all these things in the budget, they say, ‘Well boy, things going to get better. And then they’re left to wonder why it didn’t come true and why their lives continue to be so hard,” Friday said.