Opposition Leader urges Government accountability ahead of Budget 2025

“Santa Claus will be in the backseat,” Friday declared at a news conference this week, adding that the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration will “promise the world, and fail to deliver”.

Speaking on Monday, January 6, 2025 at a media conference of his New Democratic Party (NDP), Friday cautioned: “If you don’t have any money, don’t make any promises in the budget”.

The leader of the New Democratic Party pointed to commitments made in the 2024 budget that did not bear fruit.

“This is an election year, so they will scramble to get things done,” Friday remarked, “they promised to start the construction and rehabilitation of the Owia Fisheries Complex, [but] this hasn’t been done. That was built over 15 years ago.”

An August 14, 2015, SEARCHLIGHT article ‘Fisherfolk call for reopening of Fisheries Complex at Owia’, stated that multiple fishers spoke about the benefit the complex brought when it was in operation, as they were able to sell directly to the complex, rather than looking around for individual buyers.

“While it was there it was like presenting the people of North Windward with something that [would] help them, but keeping it out of reach because it has never functioned, now it is a derelict facility,” Friday said at the media conference.

The complex was opened on April 14, 2009, at a cost of EC$33 million, and funded by the government of Japan. Last year, 2024, the Government allocated over $11 towards the commencement of construction and rehabilitation work on fisheries centres in Chateaubelair, Owia and Calliaqua, through the Volcanic Eruption Emergency Project (VEEP).

At the media conference, the opposition leader spoke of his anticipation for this year’s estimates, which took place yesterday, Thursday, January 9, and the budget presentation set for Monday, January 13, with debate on the measures in the 2025 Budget set to begin the following day, January 14.

Friday will lead off debate on the measures presented on Monday, January 13, by Minister of Finance, Camillo Gonsalves.

Friday also spoke at the media conference on issues he said were shared by people with whom he spoke and would like to see addressed in this year’s budget.

“I’ll tell you, the number one thing on people’s minds is the cost of living crisis,” Friday later told a SEARCHLIGHT reporter.

“I don’t know how people can make ends meet in this country…the cost of buying groceries, paying utility bills, fixing your motor vehicles and so forth- they’re going up and up, and you’re not getting any more money…so the cost of living, that’s the priority.”

He also pointed to road conditions as another issue on people’s minds, noting that this contributes to the cost of repairing vehicles and the purchase of replacement parts.

“They’re raising all these registration fees. They did last year again, but they’re still not fixing the roads,” he commented.

Among other things, the opposition leader voiced his concerns about the national debt of EC $2,856,977,932, which is 93.6 per cent of this country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); as violent crimes, outlining that his party would aim to address these issues once given the chance to hold office.

This was the party’s first media conference for the year, but Friday has promised that there would be more in this election year.