The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has spent EC$30 million more by way of overdraft than it has the legal authority to, Opposition Leader Godwin Friday has told Parliament.
He made the point on Friday as he debated the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for 2025, saying that there were “numerous holes or flaws or problems with the preparation of this document”.
Friday said that Parliament has limited the overdraft to EC$85 million a year.
“We note in the budget here this year that the overdraft now stands for 2025 at $118 million. How does it get there when you say in a resolution that you bring to this Parliament that you are only allowed to use that facility up to a level of $85 million how does it get to be 118?”
He asked how the finance minister could have “the gall” to include that figure in the document “without even a mea culpa to say, ‘Well, listen, we are going to try to bring this down to what we say the law requires.’
“It just simply doesn’t matter, and we can’t have a situation where an important exercise as this budget exercise is that we play fast and loose with it, and we expect that the people of the country should be happy and satisfied.”
Friday said he was holding the government accountable for what it said in the Estimates, adding, “this is not some sort of casual exercise.
“We have to take it very seriously and make sure that the numbers mean something, that the descriptions mean something,” the opposition leader said.
He said that nobody told the government what information to put into the Estimates.
“You say you will provide it, and then you turn around, and you don’t do it. So how are we supposed to get that information to come to Parliament every sitting and ask a question of a particular project?” he said.
The opposition leader said he would point out during the Budget Debate, which begins on Tuesday after the Budget Address, later on Monday issues relating to “financial architecture, essentially that has been utilized by this government over the years”.
Friday said that in this particular instance, “we see that there are so many problems with the way in which this is presented and it speaks to a state of mind that either says that it’s not important, you just do what is convenient.
“You just basically make it up as you go along because nobody cares,” he said.