By Clint Chan Tack Thursday, September 17 2009

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The band coming: Judges watch as the police band marches to the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain yesterday. The band's music was heard in the Parliament...

DESPITE an impromptu musical interlude which interrupted its 10 am sitting, the House of Representatives yesterday passed the $44 billion Budget for 2010 at 1.48 pm.

Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira was in the middle of wrapping up the budget debate when music from the Police Service band filtered into the Parliament Chamber.

The band was leading a parade of judges along Abercromby Street from the Holy Trinity Cathedral to the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain as part of the ceremonial opening of the new law term which coincided with the sitting of Parliament.

As the music began to drown out Nunez-Tesheira’s words, Speaker Barry Sinanan asked if MPs wanted an adjournment but Opposition MPs said no. Sinanan eventually suspended the sitting at 10.45 am for 30 minutes as the music’s intensity increased. MPs spent the break chatting with each other, making calls on their cell phones, doing paper work or going to the tea room for refreshments.

Prior to the interruption, Nunez-Tesheira announced a $54 million cut in the $3.9 billion allocated to the Health Ministry in the budget.

Continuing where she left off when the House adjourned at 2 am on Tuesday, Nunez-Tesheira said: “I propose to introduce certain amendments to the draft estimates of expenditure for 2010. These amendments will neither increase nor decrease the total figure proposed in the appropriation financial year 2010 bill, but are merely administrative adjustments.”

She explained that these amendments were in keeping with a “fairly recent decision of Cabinet” to remove the Trinidad and Tobago Health Sciences Initiative (TTHSI) from the Health Ministry to the Tertiary Education Ministry. The TTHSI involves a partnership between Government and John Hopkins University of the United States to provide cardiovascular and diabetic training for local health care providers.

“As a result of this decision, there has been a reduction in the allocation to the Ministry of Health by $54 million and an increase to that of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education by an equal sum,” Nunez-Tesheira stated. The Tertiary Education Ministry initially received a $2.3 billion allocation. She said the decision did not affect the Health Ministry’s operations in fiscal 2010.

Later in the sitting, Nunez-Tesheira rejected Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner’s claims that Government was engaging in squandermania. She declared that international ratings agency Standard and Poor’s affirmed its confidence in Government’s management of the economy and moved the country off a negative credit watch to “a more positive outlook.”

“Confidence!” Prime Minister Patrick Manning declared as Government MPs thumped their desks in support of Nunez-Tesheira.

She declared that Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday and the UNC suffered from “bouts of self-induced amnesia” because the former regime ran consecutive deficits from 1998 to 2000 while the PNM had fiscal surpluses from 2003 to 2008. She rejected Panday’s claim that the former regime never raised taxes by quoting an October 5, 1998 document which showed the UNC imposed a penalty of $300 for holders of driver’s permits that expired “six months or more.” She said the UNC also imposed duties of $500 for money lenders and $2,500 for pawn brokers, increased alcohol taxes, imposed import duties on motor vehicles and even imposed “special registration on locally assembled foreign used vehicles.”

As she concluded her contribution, the Police Band marched past the Red House again, this time along Knox Street. The House then went into finance committee and subsequently passed the budget.