PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The 2021 bud­get was passed in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day evening but the Op­po­si­tion did not sup­port it.

When the vote for the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion (Fi­nan­cial Year 2021) Bill, 2020, was held, all 22 Gov­ern­ment mem­bers vot­ed for but all 19 Op­po­si­tion MPs ab­stained.

Mo­ments af­ter the vote, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment ex­plain­ing their stance.

“As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, we can­not in good con­science vote for a bud­get that will in­flict pain on the most vul­ner­a­ble in our so­ci­ety,” said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader.

“The Gov­ern­ment has re­fused to ac­count to the peo­ple over the bil­lions of dol­lars spent in the last fis­cal year. This is in com­plete con­tra­dic­tion to the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment to be trans­par­ent in how pub­lic funds are used.”

She said the Gov­ern­ment had made “hard­ships for the or­di­nary cit­i­zens while mak­ing life eas­i­er for their three F’s—Friends, Fam­i­lies, and Fi­nanciers.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar point­ed to mea­sures to in­tro­duce Prop­er­ty Tax and mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax­es as well as mea­sures she said, “would lead to more job loss­es and loss of in­come for peo­ple,” as fur­ther rea­sons the UNC could not sup­port the Bud­get.

“While peo­ple are be­ing told to tight­en their belts, curb their tastes, and do more with less, the Gov­ern­ment’s wan­ton and waste­ful spend­ing con­tin­ues. Just yes­ter­day we learned of mil­lions be­ing spent to out­fit a build­ing owned by the fam­i­ly of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. This, while fund­ing was cut for crit­i­cal ser­vices such as flood pre­ven­tion and mit­i­ga­tion,” she said.

“We agree that the na­tion must run but the pri­or­i­ties of this Row­ley regime re­main dis­tort­ed and will do noth­ing to grow the econ­o­my or im­prove the qual­i­ty of peo­ple’s lives.”