Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

While the Min­istry of Fi­nance has been al­lo­cat­ed the sin­gle largest slice of fund­ing in the 2009/10 bud­get, some $5.68 bil­lion, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is tru­ly the re­cip­i­ent of the most fund­ing with an al­lo­ca­tion of $4.74 bil­lion. This rep­re­sents about ten per cent of Gov­ern­ment's es­ti­mat­ed fis­cal pack­age for the new fi­nan­cial year. Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne, it would be in­ac­cu­rate to state that the Min­istry of Fi­nance was the re­cip­i­ent of the largest share of Gov­ern­ment's bud­get since the Fi­nance Min­istry would dis­trib­ute its funds to cov­er ex­pens­es ac­crued in oth­er min­istries.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day Browne said the size of the al­lo­ca­tion of funds to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry was a re­flec­tion that Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to fight against crime. "I think it is pret­ty ob­vi­ous about why (the Min­istry of) Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty re­ceived the most amount of funds. It is one of our fun­da­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and we are work­ing to­wards elim­i­nat­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty," Browne said. With an al­lo­ca­tion of more than $3.6 bil­lion, the Health Min­istry was able to rake in the sec­ond high­est fund­ing in the 2009/2010 na­tion­al bud­get. It was fol­lowed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, which was award­ed $3.4378 bil­lion, and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, which will re­ceive $2.5344 bil­lion.

Browne said the pri­or­i­ty-dis­tri­b­u­tion of fund­ing to the Health and Ed­u­ca­tion min­istries was de­signed to what he de­scribed as "look to our fu­ture." He said, "Both health and ed­u­ca­tion are crit­i­cal is­sues. We want to en­sure that our cit­i­zens en­joy healthy and long lives. We will con­tin­ue to pro­mote ef­fi­cien­cy in the health sec­tor. "As it re­lates to our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, we want to de­vel­op a high qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem and pre­pare for na­tion build­ing." An­oth­er top re­cip­i­ent of funds from the bud­get was the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment. It re­ceived $2.4365 bil­lion. It was fol­lowed by the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion with $2.2565 bil­lion and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port with $2.1002 bil­lion.

AL­LO­CA­TIONS

Charges on ac­count of the Pub­lic Debt – $6.1586 bil­lion

1. Min­istry of Fi­nance – $5.6826 bil­lion

2. Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty – $4.7428 bil­lion

3. Min­istry of Health – $3.6393 bil­lion

4. Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion – $3.4378 bil­lion

5. Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties – $2.5344 bil­lion

6. Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment – $2.4365 bil­lion

7. Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion – $2.2565 bil­lion

8. Pen­sions and Gra­tu­ities – $2.2264 bil­lion

9. Min­istry of Works and Trans­port – $2.1002 bil­lion

10. Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment – $1.7907 bil­lion

11. To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly – $1.7715 bil­lion

12. Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion – $1.3217 bil­lion

13. Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries – $1.0919 bil­lion