Edmond Campbell, Senior News Coordinator - Politics, Parliament
OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN on Finance Audley Shaw yesterday reiterated that any "reckless" use of National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and National Housing Trust (NHT) funds to support Government initiatives will be met with the strongest response from the Jamaica Labour Party.
Mr. Shaw was responding to Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller's first Budget presentation as Head of Government.
Said Shaw: "Call it by whatever word you want to call it, we do not believe that these dedicated funds should become the subject of arbitrary interventions into these funds."
He charged that notwithstanding the Government's housing initiatives, the dedicated funds should be used only to address critical needs in the area of housing and national insurance benefits.
On the issue of early childhood education, Mr. Shaw said Mrs. Simpson Miller's announcement of a $1.7 billion allocation, a 14 per cent increase over the last fiscal year, was negligible because of 11 per cent inflation. "And so in our view, no real transformation is taking place in relation to early childhood education," he insisted.
