And following her speech was the PUP's strongest debater, Deputy Prime Minister, Cordel Hyde. He rose for only 40 minutes. He boasted about the PM's budget and the promises to be delivered in this fiscal year.
Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Min ister
"See, I'm sorry to disappoint them on the other side. It's not us who start the war, you know. We didn't start COVID. We don't cause hurricanes and droughts. As much as you blame the rain and the storm and the heat and the drought and everything else under the sun on us, we don't cause inflation that's imported."
"We don't cause higher prices that's inflicted. We have not raised taxes. We've not done any of those things. What we have done, though, we've provided free education like never before. I know you all are hungry, but you all have to help me, all right, because I'm hungry too."
"We have extended NHI all over this country like never before. We've been building cement houses like never before. We have created jobs like never before. Now is the time to go to school."
"It's never been this good. Never been a better time to go to school. No government has ever helped like this before. It's free to attend any government high school across this country. Just show up, man. Your school fees paid, uniform provided, hot meals served. It gets no better than this. This budget will see $5.5 million budgeted for the so-called BOOST program. In this past year, some 283 students under BOOST graduated from high school, while another 159 is transitioning from primary to secondary school."
"Without Boost, these kids may not have been in school. They would have probably become right young targets for gang activity and gang membership and delinquent behavior. I must hasten to add, Madam Speaker, that this is a program started under the previous administration, started by the former minister Honorable Boots. I have to give him a plug, but let him not take that as an invitation to come back because that ship has sealed. We see an inordinate amount of our people wrapping with health issues and a high cost of health care."
"It's one of the greatest and costliest realities our people face daily. How did we get here? It never used to be like this. That's why we have to spend so much on health. But we have to make sure that we spend it wisely."
"I mean, Minister of Health, how much is KHMH collecting from patients annually? Two million dollars? Maybe two and a half million dollars? Max. Man, why don't we pay that as a government and make KHMH free?"
