Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

It is a shame­less bud­get and things are go­ing to get worse and not bet­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day has said. He said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira re­hashed state­ments from last year's bud­get and oth­er pre­vi­ous bud­get pre­sen­ta­tions be­fore the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

"I am afraid things are go­ing to get worse, not bet­ter, from what I have heard here this evening," Pan­day said. "All they say (are) emp­ty, wish­ful promis­es, and have been mak­ing for the last sev­en years...It is a shame­ful bud­get. "It was the most shame­less bud­get that I have ever heard. She re­gur­gi­tat­ed every­thing that they have been re­gur­gi­tat­ing for the last sev­en years and at the end of it all you think any­body be­lieves that they are go­ing to get wa­ter next year? You think that any­body be­lieves that their roads are go­ing to be fixed?"

Pan­day ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment about in­creas­es in the penal­ties and fees to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act to gen­er­ate rev­enue.

"You are now rais­ing the fines for of­fences com­mit­ted on the high­way as means of rais­ing mon­ey, which is such a fool­ish thing to de­pend on for a bud­get be­cause you first need po­lice­men who will be on the high­way to charge peo­ple, but the po­lice­men are them­selves busy do­ing their own thing so how can you have any hope that they will re­alise this mon­ey in the bud­get," he said.

"You ever see any po­lice on the high­way? First, you have to catch them (peo­ple who break the law). First, you have to ar­rest them. How many po­lice­men are there on the high­way? Have you ever seen the high­way pa­trol?" Pan­day al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment's plans and projects to ad­dress the ris­ing crime rate in the coun­try. "No, I am not dis­ap­point­ed about (their crime plan) be­cause they can­not do any­thing about it," he said.

"Why should they talk about it? She was smart not to talk about it and that's why I say it was a shame­ful bud­get. "But the most im­por­tant thing was about crime and they are talk­ing about busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and so on when there are busi­ness­men leav­ing this coun­try and so on be­cause of crime and she spend, what? Two min­utes, five min­utes on crime of her three hour speech on crime." Pan­day said noth­ing in the bud­get im­pressed him. "Noth­ing is go­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed...That has been their his­to­ry," he said.