Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas is promising nationals of the twin island federation, an early Christmas gift.
He has already informed them that on Tuesday next week, when he presents the national budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year, it will contain no new taxes.
“I do not intend to steal my own thunder… What I will say in reference to next week’s budget presentation, however, is that the people of St Kitts and Nevis, over the years, have given the government the space it needed for its policies to work. Those policies have worked.
“We thank the people for their faith and support and because the people allowed the government’s policies to work, there will be no need for any new taxes in the government’s 2015 budget,” Dr Douglas, announced at his monthly press conference on Wednesday.
Dr Douglas who is also the finance minister, said the policies put forward by his administration have already propelled St Kitts and Nevis to the leading position in the Eastern Caribbean in terms of manufactured exports to the United States, economic growth, direct foreign investment, and other key metrics.
He said the fiscal package “will make clear the fact that this government is poised to implement a development plan that will builds on the unquestioned transformations that we have already produced all across the nation, and I urge the close attention of both the media and the public to this event.”
Earlier, at a political meeting of his ruling St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP), Prime Minister Douglas said that the budget would set the framework for the continued development of St Kitts and Nevis for the next five years.
There has been widespread speculation that Prime Minister Douglas would soon announce the date for a general election here and he told reporters that the budget would provide a firsthand “glimpse of what Labour intends to do beginning with 2015 over the next five years”.
He said the Federation’s national debt will be an issue in the election campaign given the success of his administration in reducing the debt.
“When we speak of where we go from here, we want to be able to tackle very seriously the challenges that we are facing … national debt was one of the highest in the world, it is today from 200 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product), the national debt is just below 90 per cent, maybe 87 percent is what it is right now as I speak,” Dr Douglas said. He gave no figures.
Source-CMC
