VERY little excitement is likely to be generated in the House of Representatives today as Minister of Finance and Planning Dr Peter Phillips opens debate on what is possibly his most predictable budget since 2011/12.

Dr Phillips has already identified this year’s $539-billion budget as a “very tight” one, which, in real terms, adds up to virtually the same amount spent in last year’s $500-billion budget, or slightly below.

This is due to the fact that inflation of close to eight per cent has virtually gobbled up the additional $39 billion or 7.7 per cent this year. But, at least, the estimates are in keeping with Government’s emphasis on keeping public debt on a downward trajectory, having recognised it as “the main impediment to growth”.

However, it is obvious that the Government is walking a very thin line, having barely escaped the need for increased taxes by making significant cuts in both the recurrent and capital estimates, as well as finalising an agreement which ended with the treasury earning some $12.6 billion (US$115) in revenue, as a result of its renewal of the telecoms and spectrum licences of Digicel Jamaica, and LIME, for the next 15 years, which happened just in time for the budget.

The budget cuts have affected a number of valued social programmes, including capital funding to assist the disabled; repairs to schools; and spending by the Ministry of Land, Water, Environment and Climate Change on vital water and environmental projects.

There have also been a reduction in the agriculture budget; a failed attempt to get the Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme back on its wheels, except for a $630-million allocation to members of Parliament; very little in terms of financing basic social services like health, the school feeding programme, poverty alleviation, consumer protection, and low-income housing.

However, there are valid attempts to address issues like the purchase of vehicles for the security forces; improvements to the court houses and main adult correctional centres in St Catherine and Kingston; a pilot project to provide tablets (computers) for primary and high school students; road construction and rehabilitation; and the Jamaica Urban Transit Company’s bus service in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region.

Opposition spokesman on finance and planning, Audley Shaw, has expressed concern that some of the cuts in Government spending have resulted in huge arrears in its debt to agencies like the National Housing trust, as well as local contractors.

Phillips promised to provide the Opposition spokesman with a full report on the arrears by this week, but Shaw told the Jamaica Observer that up to yesterday he had not received the report.

The Opposition spokesman insists that this will be a major plank in his response to the minister when he speaks next in the debate next Tuesday.

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Roger Clarke and Opposition spokesman on Transport, Water and Infrastructure Development, Dr Horace Chang, have been added to the debate, and they will both speak on Wednesday, April 23. Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Holness, will speak on Thursday, April 24; Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller on Tuesday, April 29; and Dr Phillips closes on Wednesday, April 30.

The budget debate will be followed by the sectoral debate, which minister of science, technology, energy and mining, Phillip Paulwell, will open on May 6.