By CLINT CHAN TACK Thursday, September 2 2010

OPPOSITION LEADER Dr Keith Rowley has called on the People’s Partnership Government to ensure human development was at the core of the 2011 Budget because TT was facing “testing times”.

In his first Independence Day message as Opposition Leader and PNM political leader, Rowley observed: “As we are on the eve of yet another national budget we must be unyielding in our commitment to education from nursery to tertiary, training programmes and skilled jobs creation for the economically active population, and care for the aged and indigent.”

“This focus on human development helps to equip our people to meet the challenges inherent in economic development, the overcoming of which would be indispensable to the improvement in the quality of life in the nation,” Rowley declared. Stating that the country’s economy today is very different from the one which existed 48 years ago, when TT first attained Independence from Great Britain, Rowley said.