Richard Lord

Se­nior gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and front-line Op­po­si­tion MPs have not con­tributed to the 2009/10 na­tion­al bud­get de­bate, which is ex­pect­ed to con­clude to­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Es­ther Le Gen­dre and Op­po­si­tion MPs Vas­ant Bharath and Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Ramesh Ma­haraj and Kelvin Ram­nath did not speak in the de­bate. Ma­haraj and Ram­nath were ab­sent from the Par­lia­ment dur­ing the de­bate.

Yes­ter­day, Chief Whip Dr Hamza Rafeeq said: "We de­cid­ed not to al­low Rudy and Vas­ant to speak be­cause the min­is­ters they were plan­ning to re­spond to did not speak. So there was noth­ing to re­spond to."

Rafeeq said House Leader Colm Im­bert told him that he want­ed to con­clude the de­bate on Mon­day. Raf­feq said he ques­tioned why many of the se­nior gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Joseph, did not speak in the de­bate.

He not­ed that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira, in pre­sent­ing the bud­get two Mon­days ago, promised that Joseph would elab­o­rate on the Gov­ern­ment's ini­tia­tives to fight crime. Rafeeq said he told Im­bert it was up to him to de­cide when the de­bate clos­es.

He said the UNC won the de­bate as the Gov­ern­ment did not de­fend ad­e­quate­ly the mea­sures con­tained in the bud­get.

"We are sat­is­fied that we did well in our con­tri­bu­tions," Rafeeq added.

Rafeeq said Mooni­lal and Bharath would con­tribute to the de­bate on two bud­get-re­lat­ed mat­ters lat­er to­day, the Pro­vi­sion­al Col­lec­tion of Tax­es Or­der and the Ex­cise Du­ty (Amend­ment) Or­der.

Short­ly af­ter one o'clock yes­ter­day morn­ing, the 12-hour ses­sion end­ed, when Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira start­ed her wind-up of the de­bate. She said a re­lease is­sued by Stan­dards & Poor's Rat­ing Ser­vices clear­ly in­di­cat­ed that every­thing's not bad in the T&T econ­o­my.

Ear­li­er, Op­po­si­tion MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma was very crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment claim­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against East In­di­ans in all as­pects of life in T&T.

He was in turn crit­i­cised by Gov­ern­ment back­bencher In­dra Sinanan Ojah-Ma­haraj, who said she was dis­ap­point­ed of his claim be­cause he "Shar­ma "was one of us."

MP for Oropouche West Mick­ela Pan­day brought the House to laugh­ter when PM Man­ning asked her a ques­tion about gen­der bud­get­ing.

She re­spond­ed: "That is why your are there (on Gov­ern­ment bench­es) and we are here (on Op­po­si­tion bench­es). Pan­day told Man­ning that the an­swer was for him to de­ter­mine as he was in Gov­ern­ment.

De­bate on the bud­get is sched­uled to be­gin in the Sen­ate on Tues­day.

Those who con­tributed to the 2009/10 bud­get de­bate:

n Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira

n Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day

n In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal

n Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh

n Labour Min­is­ter Ren­nie Du­mas

n Op­po­si­tion MP Win­ston Pe­ters

n Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh

n Op­po­si­tion MP Nizam Baksh

n Sports Min­is­ter Gary Hunt

n Op­po­si­tion MP Har­ry Par­tap

n Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Pe­ter Tay­lor

n Gov­ern­ment MP An­tho­ny Roberts

n Op­po­si­tion MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar

n Gov­ern­ment MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley

n Op­po­si­tion MP Sub­has Pan­day

n Health Min­is­ter Jer­ry Narace

n Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Dr Hamza Rafeeq

n Gov­ern­ment MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey

n Op­po­si­tion MP Mick­ela Pan­day

n So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne

n Op­po­si­tion MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma

n Tourism Min­is­ter Joseph Ross

n En­er­gy Min­is­ter Con­rad Enill

n Op­po­si­tion MP Jack Warn­er

n For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon

n Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid

n Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert

n Gov­ern­ment MP In­dra Sinanan Ojah-Ma­haraj