PNP Junior Spokesperson: Golding’s Budget Plans Are Credible

The People’s National Party’s, PNP, junior spokesperson on finance, Cleveland Tomlinson, says the plans for the country as outlined by Opposition Leader Mark Golding in his budget presentation on Tuesday are indeed credible, despite the absence of the attendant cost to taxpayers.

Daina Davy reports.

Premature! That’s how Cleveland Tomlinson is describing the criticism about the absence of the relevant costing for the big plans announced by Mark Golding in his budget presentation on Tuesday.

Among Golding’s headline promises are several measures for home ownership to include lower interest rates for public sector workers and a Young Owners Deposit Fund. Through the fund, people 35 and under will be able access a $500,000 grant for their housing deposit.

He has also committed to end the extraction of $11.4 billion from the National Housing Trust, NHT. That drawdown helps to fund the annual expenditure budget.

The opposition leader did not say in his presentation how he would plug the $11.4 billion budget shortfall. But he did say he will recapitalise the NHT with lands to restore value for the nearly $137 billion that has been taken from it to fund successive budgets over the past 12 years.

Golding also announced initiatives to bring more Jamaicans onto the Jamaica Public Service Company power grid. The electricity empowerment programme will cover the cost for low-income households to have their houses rewired, inspected and certified.

He has also committed to providing the incentive of a credit against their light bills for a period after they become customers, and provide their homes with solar panels.

He’s also promising to subsidise the transportation cost of children across several rural parishes and provide one nutritious meal to every need student at the primary and secondary level.

Golding chided the government over the state of healthcare in the country and has committed to refurbishing every operating theatre across the country.

He did not provide a costing for these headline plans.

Tomlinson says those crucial numbers will be presented in the coming days and weeks.

Meanwhile, Tomlinson says Golding’s presentation hit the mark, despite the absence of numbers to show taxpayers how much his plans will cost.