By Andre Bagoo Tuesday, September 23 2008

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Good job, Mummy: Nicola Tesheira applauds her mother Karen Nunez-Tesheira, the Finance Minister, after she gave her maiden Budget presentation in Parl...

MINISTER OF Finance Karen Nunez-Tesheira yesterday expressed relief that her maiden Budget speech was over, saying that she did not set out to “please everyone” in delivering this year’s presentation.

Speaking with Newsday at a special 2008/2009 post-Budget cocktail reception held for ministers at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Port-of-Spain, Nunez-Tesheira said she was happy with the way her three hour-plus speech panned out.

“I’m relieved I’ve done it. I got that far,” Nunez-Tesheira said as she was surrounded by a bevy of her Cabinet colleagues including Minister in the Ministry of Housing Tina Groundland-Nunez and Works and Transport Minister Colm Imbert as well as Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary Orville London. Nunez-Tesheira said her work is now in the hands of the population for them to evaluate.

“At the end of the day it is for the rest of the community to make their comments on it,” she said, adding, “You’ll never please everyone, that’s the thing. That’s not your job either.”

Nunez-Tesheira, the first woman finance minister to ever present the Budget, last night readied herself for the barrage of post-Budget forums and question and answer sessions she is to endure over the coming weeks.

Asked how she might wind down after making her historic contribution, Nunez-Tesheira said she had no time to relax and was in transition straight into preparations for the post-Budget debates.

“I’m just going to regroup and get ready for tomorrow and have a good look at what people are saying about the Budget; their interpretation,” she said.

Asked what memory she would take away from her presentation, Nunez-Tesheira said it was the entire experience and the feeling of discharging a responsibility that she will remember most.

“I can’t think of anything particularly that was memorable, it’s just that you try to do your best and I look at everything as a responsibility and I am discharging a responsibility to the Government,” she said.