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.


(The opinions expressed in the above article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Inside Grenada News Team).


From the New National Party
INSIDE GRENADA NEWS