At this hour, the Sitting of the House of Representatives is still going, and they've still got a few more items on the Orders to the Day left to go through.
But earlier today, one of the hot topics of debate was the Supplementary Appropriations bill - in layman's terms, it means the government is asking the House for approval for additional expenditure outside of what was allocated in the budget. And in this case, they're asking for over 45 million dollars - this in addition to the 70 million they asked for in October - and all this in what is supposed to be a time of austerity.
But to the PM's credit - he went into copious detail of what the money will be used for.
To summarize some of what he listed, $1 million was allocated to food assistance through the Ministry of Human Development; $300,000 is for a small grant program through the Ministry of Tourism; $3 million for KHMH; $2 million for MOH for COVID related expenditures; $1.6 million towards scholarships through the Ministry of Education; a whopping 12 million for public utilities; and more.
The PM then explained that while it isn't easy for them to ask for more money, it's necessary:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"In total, recurrent expenditures add up to a little over 23 million dollars, the cumulative sum of domestically finance cap two expenditures, amount to 15.9 million while the externally source cap 3 expenditures amount to a bit over 5.8 million for a grand total of additional supplementary appropriations of $45,124,674. Now Mr Speaker I just want to make this point clear, that unlike the previous government we are coming to this house to get approval to spend these monies and we're being transparent, we're informing the house, including the opposition and the nation why is it we need to spend this money and how is it that we are going to spend."
"Mr Speaker I take no pleasure in coming to the house and saying we have to spend another $45 million dollars but we have to get the work done. We promised this country that we're going to fix the economy and that we're going to make this country once again work for everyone and that we're going to report to them how we're going to spend the money, and that is what we're doing today."
