BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Appropriation 2013 Bill made it through to safe passage late last evening (Apr. 9) following approximately 10 hours of presentations before the St. Kitts-Nevis Parliament.
With the Opposition Benches vacant and two members of the Government Benches missing in action, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas tabled the Bill sometime after 10:00 a.m. outlining the fiscal challenges the Federation has experienced over the past year, strides made and plans for the current fiscal year.
PM Douglas presented a tax-free Budget outlining measures that his government has taken in restructuring the Federation’s fiscal landscape through a debt restructuring exercise, which he said should result in “an ease in the pressure on the fiscal account from 2013 onwards”.
Then Finance Minister explained that “there are no major increases” in the Recurrent Expenditure Estimate for 2013 over last year’s, but this year’s Capital Expenditure Estimates show some increase over 2012’s.
According to Dr. Douglas, Recurrent Expenditure, barring loan principal repayments, is estimated at $409 263 516 with an estimated surplus in the Recurrent Account for this financial year of $55 086 928.
Members of Parliament - the Hons. Earl Asim Martin, Glen Phillip, Nigel Carty, Richard ‘Ricky’ Skerritt, Jason Hamilton, Patrice Nisbett and Marcella Liburd – all lent their support to the Bill and wished it safe passage into law.
With the Opposition Members having boycotted yesterday’s Parliamentary exercise, some have described it as unworthy of the “debate” title as a debate by definition suggests the presence of opposing views.
However, at approximately 10:10 last evening – and following eight presentation and three readings - the 2013 Budget was passed into law and Parliament adjourned sine die.
