VIP 2019 budget has NPD plans – Hon Penn
While Premier Fahie described the Budget as a ‘transitional’ one, Hon Penn says it is still historic in terms of the size and with regards to the amount of work the territory has to do to move forward in its rebuilding efforts.
Historic Budget – Hon Penn
“It’s a historic budget in the sense that we now have a 400M budget, it’s the first time we have a budget of this size. It is indicative of the work that we have to do to build the territory [and] rebuild the country moving forward,” Hon Penn told the Government Information Service (GIS) during a side-line interview at the HoA on budget presentation day.
According to the Opposition Leader, ‘It has some of the same plans that we [NDP] had moving forward, because at the end of the day, it's one Virgin Islands. We have to focus on rebuilding our territory.”
He said "it is what it is", a transitional budget, “The Premier presented his budget… we will have the discussion on the details on the budget and how we move forward.”
When pressed about his thoughts on the allocation of funds to the various sectors, Hon Penn said his team has to go through the details and examine the priority areas.
Devil in the Details
“They say the devil is in the details, so I think we are about to go in the process of going through the details now… we going to see how those monies are going to be allocated. I know for a fact some of the priority areas in rebuilding the schools and that was one of the proprieties for us moving forward as a past administration,” he said in relation to what the NDP had on its agenda in the event that they were re-elected to government.
“We put a lot of emphasis on getting the high school back and running, a lot of the infrastructural works is needed that was done through the CDB loan. I know those projects will continue,” Hon Penn said noting that work in those areas is necessary for the overall development of the territory.
Further, Mr Penn says his team is looking forward to the discussions on the full financal aspect of the budget in greater details, which according to him is, “to ensure that the monies are allocated to the areas that get the maximum benefit for the people of the territory.”
.png)
.png)
.png)
Follow Us On
14 Responses to “VIP 2019 budget has NPD plans – Hon Penn ”
How come they miss that it had to be done by a certain date which was before the election . Then the now premier confirm that they had to use what the NDP had prepared and they made a couple of changes.
Let us stop making everything a problem. Or we will never move forward.