And the minister wasn't at the debate today since she already gave her presentation yesterday, but her ministry looks after the most vulnerable population - children in abusive homes, women who are survivors of domestic violence, elderly persons being taken advantage of, and the poorest members of our society. So today we asked her if she feels satisfied with the budget allocated to the responsibilities her ministry has.
Dolores Balderemos Garcia, Minister of Human Dev, Families
"How shall I say, one could never be fully satisfied but what I am very pleased about is that the budget for 22 into 23 was less than 15 million for recurrent expenditure and this year we're at 16.6 million for recurrent expenditure because we will be taking on more social workers especially to address the issue of gender based violence and that shows the commitment when the government passed the resolution last year condemning gender based violence, it wasn't just talk, we acted, I took a paper to cabinet requesting more staff for women and families support department for the delivery of services and we have got it in the recurrent budget and we are fairly please, of course we could always lose more but we are fairly pleased with the CAP II vote as well at about 7.3 million so I won't complain because remember, and I think Honorable Francis made this very important point in his presentation, it's not just human development that deals with poverty, it's all the other ministries working together to lift our people out of poverty, especially our women. The programs in women in art, the programs in women in entrepreneurship and business and I said yesterday and I would just like to repeat it now that our government is being fiscally responsible, we are also putting our money where our mouth is and we're making sure that we stress on business and entrepreneurship while not forgetting the social safety net."
