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Wednesday, April 18, 2007 – Since the announcement of the Budget
Presentation and Debate last week, an air of expectancy has been circulating
throughout the country. Just what will be some of the pronouncements of
government? Exactly what will be the basket of programmes geared towards
advancing the socio-economic status of the masses? are but some of the questions
that the members of the public have been discussing.
“We think that there is tremendous amount of information that we will be able to
communicate to the general public and certainly there will be lots of surprises,
said Minister for External Affairs, International Financial Services and
Information and Broadcasting, Hon Rufus Bousquet. “There will be a lot of things
that perhaps St. Lucians over quite a long time have wanted a level of
enlightenment on and I think during the course of the debate a lot of the
information that will come, will be new information that will serve to give the
general public an opportunity to analyse in reality what we have been doing over
the last hundred plus days.
Mr. Bousquet says, in the main, government's concern in this year's budget
presentation, is to attain and maintain a sustainable and decentralized approach
to developing the country to ensure that the benefits of development is enjoyed
by every St. Lucian.
“Government is going to refocus its attention because the north of the island is
very quickly reaching its physical limits, in terms of what can be done. The
general infrastructure of the country to a large extent, certainly in terms of
Castries, has been generally run down including lots of government buildings. It
is really a shame that we have to subject the St. Lucian public to some of the
things that they have to go through, through the courts, even the application
for a simple thing like a passport, or even a birth certificate. It is
disheartening to see the number of people standing out there in long lines;
there is a general dysfunctional sense of within a number of aspects of the
public service,” the minister noted.
The public service sector, Mr. Bousquet says, will receive necessary practical
transformation urgently needed to catapult improvement in other areas of social
and economic development.
The Governor General's throne speech is expected to commence at approximately 11
a.m. on Thursday April 19 preceded by the usual pomp and ceremony.
Prime Minister the Right Hon. Sir John G.M. Compton will deliver the Budget
Presentation at approximately 4 p.m. on the same day.
The Budget Debate will take place over two days – April 23rd and 24th.
The National Television Network - NTN - will broadcast the events live and will
be joined by Daher Broadcasting Services – DBS.
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