House of Representatives passes Budget 2024 without participation from Opposition

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The House of Representatives on Tuesday evening passed the 2024 national Budget (Appropriation Bill 2023) without the participation of the Opposition in the House in what appeared to have been a boycott.

The $1.9 Budget was passed by the House following presentations from the members on the government bench.

Each member during their presentation said that the actions of the Opposition to not appear for the debate on the grounds that they wanted the debate to commence on Thursday this week on the Budget presented Friday last by Prime Minister and Minister for Finance the Hon. Gaston Browne, was irresponsible.

Government made a compromise by moving the original debate period from Monday to Tuesday, however the Opposition were unwilling to move from their requested day of Thursday.

The Ministry of Education, Creative Industries and Innovations  received the lion share of the budget, with its recurrent expenditure tagged at $198.6 Million.

The Prime Minister’s Ministry and the Ministry of Finance and Public Private Partnerships received $177.7 Million, while the Ministry of Health, Wellness, Social Transformation and the Environment was allocated $160. 5 Million.

The Senate will meet on Friday 22nd December to commence debate on the Bill.

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9 COMMENTS

  1. For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, But it shall be no more.

  2. The ABST Act was passed in 2006 without any participation from the the ABLP opposition , they all walked out. Instructions was given to their senators in the upper house to do likewise. All did besides Senator Weston who broke ranks and stayed and debated so eloquently. This resulted in his immediate removal from the upper house. This is the ABST that the now ABLP government is increasing, the same tax that the refused to debate and fired a senator for debating….LORD hold back you lightning, strike them not. The Prime minister said that the yearly budget debate is easily the most important debate , if is so ..shouldn’t it be given more time to prepare.

  3. And that’s the end of it. I am no ALP fan but UPP fundamentally made an error here. They have had no say on the budget and no special meeting or press release to explain their take on the budget will have the same effect or notice as a presentation in parliament. They let ALP off the hook with this one. There are times where Parliamentary boycotts are appropriate but this was not one of them.

  5. Has this Opposition sat through an entire Parliament session since the opening of Parliament? I remembered the days sitting and watching Tamo presentation back then, but at least he debated, on the other hand this noise making MP kept gumming off his mouth and comparing SKB economy to ours over the air waves with facts after facts, yet failed to show up and lay it all down.

  7. UPP, if you are serious about taking government and governing, you have to show up and be heard. You are calling protests about ABST increase and everything else on the book but when it is time to debate the BUDGET, you are nowhere to be seen in Parliament. So you were given a shorter period to prepare. So what? Don’t you want to be heard on the ABST increase or any other matter in the budget? We are not always going to get what we want in life and sometimes we have to maneuver and work with what we have. The BUDGET was too important in the lives of Antiguans for you to simply not show up over a short notice period. What you should have done is shown that you can maneuver and rise to the occasion despite the government short notice period and STILL beat them over their heads with the faults in the budget. Show that you can rise even in the face of a conniving, treacherous ALP.

  8. I hope Brix and others such as Beef have listened to the reasoning of Sister Jaqui Quinn this morning on her show. She was not afraid whatsoever to voice her own opinion against the party. Which tells me she must have felt very strong about her opinion and she was not willing to swallow that. When people stand up for principles, whether you agree with them or not, you have to applaud them. So Sister Jacqui I really hope you and your sister in law will not have a fall out. And I also hope that the snake will not be arrogant enough to take you off air. But as Jaqui said the UPP made a big mistake. They had time enough to double down over the weekend and Monday. And tackle the budget by department. Each member could be assigned one department to speak on. And as I said before when debating the budget you do not have to go in detail of numbers. If a Ministery is getting less than the last years budget it is that what you focus on. if they get more you indicate whether or not you think they increase is enough or not. The detail numbers are for accountants and economists.

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