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Government Ministers have praised the 2020/2021 budget which was presented under the theme “The Road to Dynamic Dominica – Fostering Economic Resilience.”

The budget was presented on Tuesday July 28, by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit.

Senior Minister and Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Honourable Reginald Austrie says that despite challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic, this budget was creative and innovative, while including resources to benefit citizens.

“I have never doubted the depth of the creativity of our leader, Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit. And it came out very, very clear that in the midst of this pandemic that every single country in the world is battling, where you would expect any Government passing a budget would increase harsh measures or remove form the resources to fight covid-19; in this budget we saw this Government including resources and putting in measures not just to fight the covid-19 pandemic but to stimulate and grow the economy,” Minister Austrie stated.   

Minister Austrie says the budget was created to ensure that every sector will benefit while easing the anxiety of citizens affected by the pandemic.

“When you look at the budget, every single sector of the economy will benefit positively. There was no increase in taxes and we need to understand that to fight covid-19, we had to find additional resources from all other sectors to fight the pandemic. And automatically you would expect an increase in taxes because you have to create and earn more revenue. That was not so in this budget. Every single sector benefitted. The tourism sector benefitted, education, agriculture, housing, the youth, the elderly, they all benefitted. I do not believe that anywhere in the world, at this particular time we could have found a budget that would release the anxiety and the burden from the citizenry as this budget has done for the people of Dominica,” he noted.

Minister Austrie made special mention of one of the major initiatives in the budget put in place to assist young persons in building or buying their own homes.

He urged the young people to quickly take advantage of the available opportunity.

“The Government has been carrying the burden of providing housing for people for the last ten year; repairing and renovating homes and building new ones,  we have been carrying this a hundred percent to a very great extent. And I believe that there are some people in this country, who are prepared to assist themselves. I believe that we have young professionals who do not necessarily need a free house from the Government, but because they are unable to get the initial start off, the initial ten or twenty thousand that they require, they are stalled. I believe that this particular measure which will put monies into their hands, will help a number of Dominicans. For the young people in particular, who have some resources, who can get some resources but just need that extra push from the Government, I believe that they will take advantage of this measure. I expect to see the young person running to the institution to take advantage of this opportunity,” the Housing Minister explained.  

The Senior Minister went on to commend the Prime Minister for his foresight and creativity as well as the financial advisors who helped create the budget.

He then urged public officers to put in the work to ensure that the initiatives’ outlined in the budget are fruitful.

“I must say kudos to our Prime Minister for his vision, for his foresight, his tenacity his ability to survive and to come through in very difficult times. His advisors, his public officers, and the cabinet who sat with him and put this thing together, I don’t think we could ask for anything better. I believe it’s an excellent budget and what will determine the success of the budget is our ability to implement the measures that are stated therein. I have no doubt that we will raise the financing, and if the Prime Minister puts into a budget a specific measure, then he already knows where the money is going to come from to do it. What I want to implore is that the public officers and all those who would be responsible for implementation to spend the extra hours, spend the extra minutes and do it for Dominica. We have the material, we have the ideas, and we have the vision, now its execution time. Excellent budget and I couldn’t ask for anything better,” Minister Austrie added.