Basseterre, St. Kitts, November 07, 2015 (SKNIS)—The first Budget (2016) of the Government of National Unity will be a “significant moment for us as far as the implementation in furthering our agenda and mandate to the people,” said Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris.
“This is our first Budget. It is the first Budget to be delivered by a Team Unity Administration since the elections of February 16, 2015. That in itself makes it a very special Budget. It affords us the opportunity by way of legislative provisions to ensure that a number of policy initiatives which we want to pursue can be adequately resourced,” Prime Minister Harris said in an interview on the second day, November 5, of the Budget Estimates Meetings at the Ministry of Finance Building.
Prime Minister Harris said that the Government will expand both its economic and social agenda. Some of the areas of expansion noted by the prime minister are the reformation of the Citizen-by-Investment Programme, renewable energy, education and labour issues including health and safety in the workplace and illegal workers.
“There is a need to reposition the Citizenship-by-Investment Programme and to look for new areas of economic growth, expanding some old ones and finding some new ones such as renewable energy and in particular the matter of geothermal development,” Dr. Harris said. “Our Budget then will signal the path in which we will proceed in relation to these matters. Additionally, it would provide a framework which over the medium term would guide the actions of the Team Unity Government.”
Dr. Harris also spoke to some of the policy initiatives at the social level.
“At the social level of course are matters to do with education. We want to provide special support to the Department of Labour to enhance its capability to deliver on those issues that matter to the workers. We are concerned about health and safety issues at the workplace. We are concerned about working conditions and we are concerned to know that people are being paid decent wages,” he said.
“Of course, there have been allegations and we want an effective labour department system to be able to address whether or not we have a large pool of illegal workers operating in the country, and so that will be part of the investigation that we expect the Labour Department should be able to competently pursue,” Prime Minister Harris added.
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