Greetings readers:

IT would appear that those of you who eagerly anticipated the presentation of the budget had your dreams fulfilled and the weeks of anxiously awaiting said news have now borne fruit.

I personally didn’t want the budget to be read because I knew exactly what was to come, unlike the extremely optimistic among us who thought the PNP would roll back taxes, remove GCT from our electricity bills; repair all roads, provide jobs for every eligible Jamaican and let us eat oxtail on Saturday instead of chicken back.

I knew that any party which came into power with the current financial bank statement of this little island, where more than half of its citizenry does not pay income taxes and has no means of earning foreign exchange, was going to have to suck salt through iron spoon as my granny always said.

From the feedback on Twitter it would appear that those who tuned in to view the reading by the prime minister got more than they bargained for.

They experienced a lengthy vote of thanks, note-passing by prominent ministers and an impassioned rant that was inexplicable considering that this was supposed to have been a budget presentation. I still don’t understand why persons were shocked though, apart from us being flat broke and in debt to our eyelashes; the PNP was just keeping true to form. Remember they promised to ‘Tun up di ting”. Well, it tun up so high now that the knob bruk

off and lost. Everything ‘tun up’, even the sun join in the melee. What a way the place hot? Besides, if politicians didn’t break election promises they would probably be given another title; it is what they do, just try to remember that come the next general election and you won’t be disappointed.

Revenue is what runs a country efficiently, not elected officials, they just oversee the operation. If there is no money in the piggy bank, even our great financial wizards would have to implement unfavourable measures to keep the country going. We all have to pull our weight and stop sitting back relying on Government to fix our problems.

I still chuckle at the income tax dodgers on the Internet via their extremely expensive smart phones watching the presentation on their equally high-tech plasma TVs, who were bawling about how much they were suffering. Really? In case you didn’t know, most people in developed countries can’t afford a smart phone and are still hardly able to watch their

big-back television sets as they work two jobs. One good thing that came out of the budget reading was that patty sales shot up instantaneously. So funny was it to see people who eat a patty maybe once a month, tearing their hair out by the roots that the cost of patties had gone up. Everybody and their mom rushed to purchase patties prior to the increased prices and patty shop owners danced with glee. It was too funny.

I stand by my statement that all this grumbling is going to die a natural death; supermarkets will continue to be filled on weekends, gas stations will still see a steady stream of patrons, and we shall still be partying like rockstars, because that’s just how resilient we are.

So enjoy your seven-day grumble, shock, awe and dismay pity party… I will be pinching my pennies, as usual, trying to make a life here on the Rock. Follow me on Twitter @ElvaJamaica or elvachatalot@yahoo.com

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