The allocation for entertainment and functions hosted by the Prime Minister’s Office has been increased from $890,000 in 2024 to $50 million in 2025. Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday zeroed in on this massive increase, accusing the Prime Minister of “feteing” in his election year while telling the rest of the country to “hold strain”. In her budget reply titled, “A decade of debts, deficits, destabilisation, death and destruction”, delivered in the House of Representatives, at the Red House, Port of Spain, she also questioned the allocation of $400 million for “unknown buildings” under the prime ministerial vote.
As she trained her guns on the Prime Minister, Persad-Bissessar contrasted the $50 million allocation for parties hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister with the “measly” $1 million allocated for strengthening child protection systems in the country to combat paedophiles. “But we know that this PNM (Government) does not care about child protection systems because PNM officials have been repeatedly accused of being involved in a paedophile ring,” she added. “For this Government, ‘There ain’t no party like a Diddy party’,” the Opposition Leader quipped.
In her budget reply, which lasted three hours and 40 minutes, Persad-Bissessar slammed the Prime Minister, the “chosen one” (Energy Minister) Stuart Young and the Finance Minister, Colm Imbert. Imbert’s budget presentation on Monday was five h.