Opposition Leader dismisses budget
Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace mobbed by supporters on his way to Parliament.
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, CMC – Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace on Tuesday dismissed as a “fraud of monumental proportion,” the EC$913.5 million (US$338.3 million) tax-free national budget presented to Parliament by the St. Vincent and the Grenadines government.
Eustace, an economist, said the budget presented on Monday was fraught with inconsistencies, half-truths, fake analysis and heavy deficit without clear indications of financing.
He said the counter-cyclical policy adopted by the government of Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves eight years ago was an indication that the economy has been in trouble since then.
He told legislators that the 2010 national budget had the largest deficit on the current account – EC$108 million (US$40 million).
“I regard this budget as a fraud perpetrated on the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I am ashamed. The people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines do not deserve this,” Eustace said.
He said every major sub-sector of the economy had declined since 2008, adding “we are twiddling on the brink of bankruptcy”.
Eustace, a former prime minister, said the Gonsalves administration has every year devised “a new vice to place Vincentians under further distress”.
He listed the distresses as victimisation, fear, nepotism, betrayal, adding “and now, money laundering is being used to raise its head in relation to the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines”.
He was referring to one million US dollars (EC$2.7 million) in cash “government officials and their acolytes” deposited in the government’s account at the state-owned National Commercial Bank.
Gonsalves, in response to a question from Eustace in Parliament last week, told legislators that information had been leaked from the bank and he would not “dignify mischief nor unauthorised breaches of confidentiality”.
But Eustace told legislators on Tuesday, that “despite the bluffing, the Prime Minister is concerned about the matter. What I want him to do is to clear the air so that the image of this country, as if an image could breathe, would breathe clean air”.
He said that the budget could not stand on its own.
“I didn’t think that any minister of finance would have the testicular fortitude to bring such a document to Parliament…(The Prime Minister) has brought this country practically to the brink of collapse. But the Prime Minister does not listen (to others). He listens to himself,” Eustace said.
He said the budget making process had been reduced to an exercise in arithmetic “with tinkering here and there and you try strike a balance”.
Regarding the national debt of EC$1.19 billion (US$400 million), Eustace said that for the first time in the nation’s history, domestic debt was higher than external debt.
Gonsalves in his budget speech on Monday said that there would be no commercial borrowing this year.
Eustace said that while the lending terms of external financial were more favourable, the government avoided them to evade their oversight of loans.
“I think we should re-examine this issue because our payment are already high. Why are we moving in that direction? What is the benefit?” Eustace said.
This year’s budget is EC$162.6 million (US$60.2 million) or 21.7 per cent higher than the approved estimates for 2009 and the government will run a current account deficit of EC$20.5 million (US$7.59 million).
Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has served SVG well
It may be said that I am a very biased “Labour Hog”. But I want to believe that I am an objective individual, an independent thinker and a man who is not afraid to tell it like it is.
Even Stephen Wonder would see that Mr. Eustace has been wrong about every Budget presented by Dr.Gonsalves since he came to office in 2001.
Salaries have been paid on time – except in a few cases where there were minor holdups with processing of wages for hourly workers; the government has met all payment obligations on loans and to regional and international institutions; the economy of the country has grown every single year, even after 911, the global meltdown and world recession; there have been more social programmes implemented in SVG from 2001 – 2009, than during any other period in the history of governance; we have not heard any alarm bells sounded by financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF; and I could go on and on.
Since 2002 up until yesterday, during every single one of Mr Eustaces’ Budget/Estimates presentations, he declared in his opening “…this is the worst Budget I have ever seen in this country…”
Brothers and sisters, we have no natural resources in our country. Thanks to the the progressive foreign policy of the Gonsalves ULP, SVG receives great help from many nations with different ideological persuasion. Given Mr. Eustace’s backward rhetoric over the years, I doubt he will ever be able to turn to many of these countries for assistance.
Seriously, which other Prime Minister in the world would have been able to put the Argyle International Airport project together in the “magnificent” way De Comrade did?
Whether one is a “Ralph hater” or a “Eustace lover”, one has to admit that Comrade is the better leader (“Better By Far”) for SVG in these times of local and global economic challenges. One also has to concede that Mr. Eustace has failed to demonstrate over the past 10 years, that he has what it takes to lead SVG to progress. His poor performance in the House a couple of days ago showed how unprepared Mr. Eustace is for the Prime Minister’s office.
Many faults has De Comrade, but being a poor leader is not one of them. Like Mitchell and Cato before him, he may come over at times like an “I Man”, but in my opinion, Dr. Ralph E. Gonsalves has delivered in fine style. He was easily the Caribbean leader of the last decade. He has served SVG well!