THE BUDGET DEBATE AND THE MINISTERS ACQUIT THEMSELVES

The annual ritual of the Budget Debate in the House of Assembly is winding its way inexorably to the end.  The Minister for Housing Keith Bell is up next on Monday morning 17 June 2024.  He will be followed by the National Security Minister Wayne Munroe and the Prime Minister will wrap up the debate.  That will be it for the House budget debate this year and then the Bills move on to the Senate where they will spend the last week in June passing the various bills.  It has been a good debate.  The country has seen the various Ministers who are working in their portfolios and given a good account of their work. The theme of the Budget debate was “Changing the status quo. Changing lives.” Leading the charge was JoBeth Coleby Davis who is heading up the major change in the energy policy of the government of The Bahamas.  There is to be a switch to solar starting at the end of the year in the Family Islands.  In Nassau, the transmission and distribution parts of the network are to be outsourced to a new partially government-owned entity, and the systems are upgraded.  There will be a switch to LNG as the main fuel supply as opposed to diesel which they now use.  Also, this will result by 1 July in a rebalancing of rates so that the smallest users pay less and the larger users pay more.   This results in significant savings for the working class.