St Vincent (SVG) on Wednesday passed its 2024 budget after only three days of debate, the shortest budget debate in history of the islands parliament.
During the wrap up, there were several heated exchanges, including an exchange between Opposition Senator Israel Bruce and Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.
Gonsalves told Bruce that he (Bruce) will not be here after the next election. Bruce in response told Gonsalves that he (Gonsalves) in his opinion ‘does not believe in God’.
Gonsalves asks the Speaker to have Bruce withdraw the statement, to which Bruce did not comply, with the Speaker eventually telling Finance Minister Camilo Gonsalves to continue with the debate.
Summary Of Budget
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines withstood the COVID Pandemic and volcanic eruptions better than expected, and has returned to a path of strong growth. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines rebounded to pre-Pandemic levels of production by 2022, and preliminary estimates suggest 6 percent growth in 2023. Growth is projected at 5.5 percent in 2024.
Budget 2024 is crafted to build upon the ongoing economic reform through people-centred investments in transformative development projects and reforms that ensure long-term fiscal sustainability.
The $1.6 billion Budget 2024, which projects a current account deficit of $25 million, enters the second year of its three-year wage enhancement package for public servants, with a 2 percent salary increase across the board. Nurses, who are in demand globally and being poached at an alarming rate by developed countries, receive an extra 5 percent boost for the first six months of 2024.
Budget 2024 includes a record $570.5 in planned capital expenditure, following record implementation of approximately $350 million in capital projects in 2023. The Capital programme is led by the continued construction of the Modern Cargo Port, which is allocated $101 million.
The continuation of the Government’s thrust on road repair and rehabilitation hits full stride in 2024. The National Road Rehabilitation Programme is allocated $43 million out of approximately $70 million dedicated to road repair in Budget 2024.
Similarly, construction of the Acute Care Hospital at Arnos Vale is will also begin in 2024. This critically-important resilience project is budgeted $35 million this year. The work of strengthening healthcare resilience goes well beyond a new hospital, and the other work of healthcare reform will also continue.
As part of our continued recovery from the impacts of the 2021 volcanic eruptions, Budget 2024 invests $ 24 million for the construction or repair of over 750 homes nationwide. The provision of building materials to vulnerable homeowners, to assist them in the repair and safety of their houses, also continues.
Support for the agriculture and fisheries sectors transitions from surviving COVID and the volcanic eruptions, to increasing production and capacity in the face of new demand opportunities. A $27 million injection of production supports will support food security with investments in equipment, livestock, tools and fishing supplies.
The imminent opening of the largest hotel in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the 300-room Sandals Resort at Buccament Bay, heralds the dawn of a new phase in tourism development. The Sandals Resort, whose construction cost over $600 million, will hire 550 Vincentians at by March, and top out at 900 local employees by the end of its first full year of operation. The Government’s investments in an additional 350 hotel rooms, from the Holiday Inn Express and Marriott Resorts brands, will add further room stock, jobs, and capacity to the hospitality sector.
Sports and Culture enjoy heavy investments, with $15 million being invested in cricket infrastructure in advance of the T20 World Cup tournament. A further $15 million is invested in expansion of the Sir Vincent Beache Athletic Facility in Diamond. Construction of three Cultural, Artistic and Production Hubs begins this year, to bolster youth access to the arts, and to the opportunities necessary to bolster their skills. The Government will also support the creation of a National Youth Orchestra.
Education investments of $19 million in Budget 2024 are headlined by the continuing comprehensive school repair programme, and the construction of state-of-the-art secondary schools in two locations: Sandy Bay and Brighton.
The Government’s Digital Transformation agenda takes a great leap forward in 2024, with planed implementation of a series of citizen-focused initiatives that will revolutionise the ways in which people pay their taxes, navigate Customs imports, renew or apply for critical documents, purchase land, and interact with the State.
The complex minimum wage architecture, last adjusted in 2017, will receive an important update in 2024 that ensures no full-time worker earns less than $1,000 per month. Simultaneously, the Government is raising the standard income tax deduction to $25,000 annually, to ensure that low wage earners will have greater freedom from taxes.
The social security system undergoes critical reforms to ensure its sustainability, and push the so-called “exhaustion date” from 2035 to 2060. The reforms include an increase in contributions, disincentives to take early pensions, increased insurable wages, improved benefits to vulnerable Vincentians, and changes to the ways in which pensions are computed.
Conversations on public pension reform and tax reform are slated to continue in 2024.
Budget 2024 raises minimum wages, increases public sector salaries, and beneficially alters tax deductions. Budget 2024 safeguards the sustainability of the NIS for decades to come. Budget 2024 invests more money than ever before in the types of infrastructure that drive developmental
transformation and resilience: Roads. Schools. Clinics. Hospitals. Houses. Hotels. Digital Transformation. And a state-of-the-art port facility.
Budget 2024 seizes this moment of recovery and growth to ensure that transformational development is accelerated, and that resilience to external shocks, including climate change, is improved. The critical economic and social sectors that underpin Vincentian society all receive significant, targeted investment, in line with the Government’s vision to create in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines a modern, post-colonial, competitive economy, that is at once local, regional and global.
