PM dresses down Opposition on Budget response

Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, had strong words of criticism for the Parliamentary Opposition noting in Parliament last Friday, January 17, 2025 that “ the opposition in this country has become irrelevant to the direction of this country”.

Having allowed other members on the government side to make their contribution to the debate on the 2025 $1.85 million budget, the Prime Minister was the final speaker to contribute to the debate before the Minister of Finance wrapped up. Opposition Leader, Dr Godwin Friday, leading off debate on Tuesday morning, January 14, 2025, labelled the budget as unrealistic and called for the government to be fired.

Gonsalves said, “ it is clear that after near quarter century in opposition, their brains are addled, their spirits are dimmed, and they know in their hearts- and they fear it like how jumbie fraid holy water, that they are going down later this year, to their 6th consecutive electoral defeat.”

Gonsalves who is political leader of the governing Unity Labour Party (ULP), took issue with the four hour response made by Friday.

“The Budget response by the Leader of the Opposition, is an embarrassment to them, Gonsalves,” Gonsalves concluded, adding that it was “ the worst I have ever heard in living memory, by any leader of the opposition.”

In the prime minister’s estimation, the presentation “missed completely the circumstances and the times in which we live”.

Apart from Friday, Gonsalves found that the contribution of other members of the opposition to the 2025 Budget debate was “pessimistic to the core”.

He said the opposition members were “ dragging down our country, [and] bad mouthing hard working public servants for no good reason”.

In the prime minister’s view, the members on the opposition benches “hypocritically presented themselves as virtuous beyond reproach.”

“They displayed no genuine aching heart for those who are suffering,” Gonsalves noted.

His perspective was that the opposition’s response to the 2025 budget was the same “tired, old, boring, broken record,” which has been heard so many times before.

Gonsalves pointed out that contrary to the negative pronouncements, and despite the adverse natural events with which the country has been grappling, St Vincent and the Grenadines has recorded “solid economic growth over the last few years”.

He said at the end of December, 2021, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at market prices was $2.399 billion, and by the end of September, 2024, it was $3.1 billion.

Additionally, he said NIS figures show that the number of active employees rose from 30,000 in 2000, to almost 45,000 at the end of last year, and there are still a number of employed people who do not pay NIS.

In his presentation of the 2025 Budget Monday afternoon, January 13, 2025, the Minister of Finance was also very optimistic in his outlook for St Vincent and the Grenadines.

“We are already recovering, we are already rising again, and we are energetically building a stronger, more resilient, more inclusive, more sustainable St Vincent and the Grenadines,” the minister stated.