PARLIAMENT will be prorogued on Ash Wednesday, February 14, as it closes the 2017/18 financial year and gets set for the 2018/19 session, which begins on Thursday with the annual ceremonial opening.

Three items are listed on the schedule for Gordon House this week: the Public Accounts Committee sits tomorrow morning at 10 and the House of Representatives will also sit tomorrow, at 2:00 pm.

The third event will be the ceremonial opening on Thursday at 10:30 am, when the Governor General Sir Patrick Allen will read the Throne Speech, after inspecting a guard of honour mounted by the Jamaica Defence Force and the mounted police.

The ceremonial opening normally attracts crowds of supporters of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party and the Opposition People’s National Party to the south and north borders of Gordon House, to watch their Members of Parliament and senators walk from either end into Gordon House for the Throne Speech, which highlights the government plans, programmes and policies for the new financial year.

The other highlight of the day’s proceedings will be the tabling of the revenue and expenditure budgets for 2018/19, when the House of Representatives sits at 2:00 pm.

Indication from Minister of Finance and the Public Service Audley Shaw is that there will be no new taxes in the 2018/19 revenue budget, but there should be additional allocations in the expenditure budget to meet the new wage agreement with the public sector workers, which is likely to be signed early this month, as well as financing to boost agricultural redevelopment following the losses suffered in the sector since mid-2017 from heavy rainfall, and a focus on land development and the medium, small and micro enterprises sector.

The expenditures are also expected to include a major boost to government capital investment in the security forces to fight crime, which could increase the Ministry of National Security’s allocation to about one-third of the total capital budget.

There is also expected to be included in the expenditures an allocation to fund the government’s buy-back of the Venezuelan 49 per cent interest in the oil refinery, Petrojam.

According to Shaw, the Government plans to build on Jamaica’s good standing with its international creditors, as a result of notable improvements in several areas of the economy. These include: The stabilisation of the macroeconomic environment, debt reduction, fiscal discipline, and maintaining inflation within the four to six per cent range, all of which are targets under the current Precautionary Stand-By Arrangement with the International Monetary Fund.

A $4.5-billion islandwide road improvement programme is also likely to be included in the budget.

In the meantime, the Public Accounts Committee, which is chaired by Opposition Mark Golding, will discuss the Auditor General’s Compendium of Special Audits and Investigations Report on selected entities when it meets tomorrow morning.

Among the issues to be discussed will be: the Urban Development Corporation’s divestment of the Oceana Complex in downtown Kingston; the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service’s lease of sections of the Oceana Complex’s ground floor to the Accountant General’s Department and the renovations works.

The committee, which reviews the audits tabled by the Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis, will also review financial statements assessment of the National Road Operating and Construction Company.

It is also likely that when the House meets on Tuesday, it will complete the debate on the private member’s Bill, which was tabled by Opposition spokesman on national security Fitz Jackson who is seeking to have controls placed on commercial financial institutions, including banks, in terms of their imposition of fees and charges for their customers.

The debate resumed last week Tuesday, but was not completed, as acting House Leader Everald Warmington suspended discussions by a week to accommodate other pressing issues on the agenda.