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The leader
of the Opposition must be congratulated
for an excellent job done at dissecting
and analyzing the 2009 budget thus
revealing and making clear to the people
of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite
Martinique the inaccuracies, trickery,
and gimmickry that were so dominant and
pervasive in the 2009 budget presented
by the Minister of Finance.
The
National Democratic Congress Government
wanted to win the election at any cost
with any promise; so during the last
election campaign the NDC embarked on
extravagant, reckless and unrealistic
promises to win the votes of the
unsuspecting electorate.
They wanted
to attain power not as an opportunity to
help improve the lives of the people of
Grenada, Carriacou and Petite
Martinique, but as a prize to be won,
without any real commitment beyond
wining the election; without any social,
moral or economic imperative to guide
their action once they attain office.
That is why the 2009 budget is so empty
and lacks any meaningful benefit beyond
those already provided by the previous
administration.
What is
interesting to note is that over 90% of
the projects and programmes announced in
the budget were initiated by the New
National Party Government and it is even
clearer now that the NNP laid a solid
foundation for many benefits we enjoy
today.
It was the
NNP adhering to the IMF programme that
yielded favorable reviews that resulted
in the delivery of US$ 4.8 million to
the treasury immediately after the NDC
assumed office. It was therefore
impossible for the treasury to be empty
when the Minister for finance declared
so shortly after.
It was the
NNP administration through the very hard
work of the Ambassador in Brussels and
the Minister for Foreign Affairs that
got the European Union to commit funding
to Grenada in the sum of EC$153 million
with the likelihood of more if the money
is spent well. It was the NNP
administration under the leadership of
Dr the Rt Hon. Keith Mitchell that
persuaded the Indian Government to
contribute $1 million to enhance
Information Technology in Grenada.
Again the
Minister announced that over 2000 houses
will be built by the Chinese without
indicating that this was already
negotiated for by the previous
administration. This was part of the
package which was negotiated as part of
the normalization of relations with the
People’s Republic of China. We all
recall that the NDC vehemently opposed
to Grenada moving to normalize the
relationship with China and they went as
far as to apologize to the Taiwanese for
the NNP decision. Today it is ironical
that the same NDC is happy to benefit
from the fruits of this relationship and
is willing to claim credit for the
achievements and plans. How could the
Minister for Finance take credit for
these achievements with a straight face?
The
Minister was also happy to speak about
the funding for the Venezuela Housing
Project, the farm roads project, and the
GREP projects all these projects were
negotiated and started under the NNP
administration. The question left to be
asked is ‘What new did NDC bring to the
table of development and progress?’
Listening
to the Minister of Finance in the last
budget debate you would think that the
above were accomplishments of the NDC
since assuming office in July 2008. The
Minister in presenting the budget could
have at least given credit to the
previous administration for all the
benefits he was happy to announce.
Instead he attempted to mislead the
public to believe that this was the work
of the NDC in only six months.
The NNP has
done its work over the 13 years .While
each successive government will benefit
from the work of the previous government
it is wrong for a new administration to
use the accomplishments of the previous
government to score cheap political
points.
NNP
Perspective week ending January 16th,
2009
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