PM Wraps Up Budget Debate 2019

Dean Barrow

Following the no vote for the Diaspora Bill, at around eleven o’clock on Tuesday night, Prime Minister Barrow closed off the exhaustive two-day debate of the 2019-2020 Budget.  After responding to the criticisms from the Opposition, the PM continued to tout the budget, lauding government’s track record for improving the economy and the spending on infrastructure works.  In wrapping up, the PM focused heavily on the primary sector.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Coming back to the primary sector, Madame Speaker, sugar production rose from nine hundred and eighty long tons in 2008, when you left, to one thousand, six hundred and seventy long tons in 2017.  This, despite the Leader of the Opposition having conspired with his operatives in the B.S.C.F.A. to sabotage the industry, remember Ortega and Novelo and the whole crowd ah dehn, notwithstanding that.  From nine hundred and eighty long tons to one thousand six hundred and seventy long tons.  Talk about multiplier effect and talk about a Midas touch, you‘re talking about the U.D.P., you know.  Take something like corn.  Usually, just wahn crop for self-sufficiency, the corn harvest skyrocketed from eighty-one thousand pounds in 2008 to a hundred and eighty-five thousand now, a one hundred and thirty percent increase.  Rice production has risen from twenty-six thousand pounds to forty-one thousand pounds.  Red kidney beans from five point five million pounds to eleven point five million pounds and production of poultry, milk, eggs and pigs.  You know, I won‘t get rude, you know, and talk about that increase in the production of pigs.  The way some people mi di behave dis morning and di throw words over here…  The production of poultry, milk, eggs and pigs has each doubled since 2008.  So despite the unavoidable effects of disease in key commodities in aquaculture, the overall picture shows that this administration has delivered far superior results in every economic, fiscal and monetary metric.”