KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, CMC – Parliament Friday approved the EC$913-5 million (US$338.3 million) national budget presented last week by Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves as opposition legislators stayed away from the session.

But Prime Minister Gonsalves took the opportunity to severely criticise Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace, describing him as “a caricature of an economist” that is not competent enough to hold any political office in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“Eustace and his colleagues were not in Parliament to hear Gonsalves rebuttal, instead joining their supporters in a demonstration outside to highlight “major issues confronting the nation”.

Gonsalves told legislators that at age 66, Eustace was in no position to start an administration.

“I am saying, on the evidence before us, the Honourable Leader of the Opposition is not mentally, intellectually, and physically fit enough for the leadership, in any capacity, whether in government or opposition,” said the 62-year-old Prime Minister.

Eustace, an economist by training, had earlier described the 2010 budget as a “fraud of monumental proportion”, but Gonsalves said the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) lacked “a comprehensive worldview or philosophy to his economic thinking”.

“…. (Eustace] has degenerated into a caricature of an economist because he sees economics as a series of technical functions only, with no set of internal coherence and linkages,” Gonsalves told Parliament, adding that the Opposition Leader had prepared his response to the budget even before it had been presented.

He said the opposition legislators did not address, among other things, the three per cent salary increase for public servants, although his government had initially promised five per cent.

“No one on the opposition offered any pre scri ption. They gave a sterile de scri ption. They showed they are not ready and will never be ready without a radical rethink of their philosophy, their vision, policy and programme and, indeed, personnel, including their leader.”

“…It is clear that what this government had done. It has fashioned a budget for our times. It has fashioned a budget which keeps the essential programmes going, put other new programmes in place. We are not profligate. We are careful. We have identified the resources, there are no taxes in this budget; we have continued to reduce the VAT (Value Added Tax) on several items,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves also responded to Eustace’s comparison of the estimates to the crumbling of building in the earthquake that devastated Haiti two weeks ago.

“I regard these estimates something like a pack of cards from which a building is built. In terms of revenue, it is not there and it will collapse, much like the buildings in Haiti,” Eustace said in his response to the budget.

But Gonsalves told legislators that the response had hit “him “so hard in my heart and my bones, in my very being.

“I internalised the shock, Mr. Speaker. Because if I had gotten up and said something, I probably would have said something unparliamentarily at that particular point. Imagine drawing an analogy, looking for a simile in relation to people’s monumental and painful suffering. What manner of man is this?” Gonsalves said.