THE Senate passed two key Bills in a marathon 11-hour sitting from Tuesday afternoon to 12.25 am yesterday on the heels of last week’s two marathon sittings in the Lower House.
Senate Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles voiced her disapproval, amid general fears that such long and late sittings would fail to address concerns raised in debate. After a lengthy debate in committee stage, Senators passed the Firearms (Amendment) Bill to tighten up on gun ownership.
Some 29 Senators voted for the Bill (passing it with the required three-fifths special majority), with none voting against, but with Independent Senator Corrine Baptiste-Mc Knight abstaining. She had unsuccessfully asked for the Bill to withhold a firearms licence from any man who does not pay his child maintenance, arguing that such behaviour suggests he may be prone to acts of domestic violence.
The Senate then sat for four hours to unanimously pass a Bill to tie up loose ends in the 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 Budgets, the Finance (Supplementation and Variation of Appropriation) (Financial Year 2010) Bill, 2011. Starting with Finance Minister Winston Dookeran who pilotted the Bill, speakers made a conscious effort to be concise, with the first three speeches being delivered, in sum, in less than an hour. “This Bill was fully debate in the Lower House in an all night session and every aspect of finance was raised and unraised,” Dookeran assured.
He said the Bill supplements the 2009/2010 Budget by a new amount of $1.18 billion and varies the allocations in that Budget by $568 million. Notably Dookeran said the 2010/2011 Budget deficit would in fact only amount to $3.34 billion, not the $7 billion originally predicted.
He said the improved position was due to the country having more revenues from energy than at first predicted. The actual energy revenues are $15.4 billion, rather than the original estimate of $10.38 billion. He added that the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund now stood at a healthy US$3 billion.
Dookeran ended by lamenting that this was the sixth time in the past five months that Parliament has debated financial issues, starting with the Budget last September, a Finance Bill in November and now this Bill, each of the three Bills being debated by both Houses. He asked Senate President Timothy Hamel-Smith to mull this fact in considering a reform of the Senate’s workings.
Opposition Senator Dr Lester Henry and Independent Senator Subhas Ramkhelawan both advised Government not to be lulled by Standard and Poor’s recent “A” grade credit rating for this country. Henry said the same rating was earned under the past PNM government, saying, “So wasn’t astute management applicable under the previous regime? You don’t want to admit you met a strong economy?”
Henry warned that a difference between a foreign and local assessment of this country’s economy was not necessarily a good thing. “Standard and Poor’s put AAA ratings on all sorts of junk, that perpetrated the international financial crisis.
Subhas Ramkhelawan pointed to significant woes in the economy. He said while the oil-price is rising, the price of natural gas is not. Noting little borrowing being done by the private sector and consumers, he said the dependence is now on public sector spending to drive the economy.
