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Thursday, 03 April 2008
Chairman of the Standing Finance committee of Parliament Delroy Chuck began this morning's sitting with a stern warning for members to be concise in their presentations.
The committee which is in its final day of examining the Estimates of Expenditure sat until 10.30pm on Tuesday and 11.30 Wednesday night.
"I never usually put any restraint on anyone but I'm going to beg questioners and ministers to avoid the lengthy comments and response," said Chairman, Delroy Chuck.
Even with this caution, Members of Parliament (MPs) including the chairman could not resist indulging in self serving queries by lobbing concerns about roads in their constituencies at Transport Minister Mike Henry who was in the hot seat Thursday morning.
Mr. Henry admitted that the allocation for road work is tight in light of the number of roads and projects being undertaken by his ministry.
He however appealed to the MP's to dedicate a portion of the monies they will receive from the Constituency Development Fund for road repair.
"I said as a policy and as an approach from my personal desk, I will try to work with the MP's who are utilizing their Constituency Development Fund in relation to roads and I'm going to go as far as is humanly possible to match that," said Mr. Henry.
He also gave a commitment that despite the constraints, trunk and main roads across the island will be given priority for repair.
Chairman of the Standing Finance committee of Parliament Delroy Chuck began this morning's sitting with a stern warning for members to be concise in their presentations.
The committee which is in its final day of examining the Estimates of Expenditure sat until 10.30pm on Tuesday and 11.30 Wednesday night.
"I never usually put any restraint on anyone but I'm going to beg questioners and ministers to avoid the lengthy comments and response," said Chairman, Delroy Chuck.
Even with this caution, Members of Parliament (MPs) including the chairman could not resist indulging in self serving queries by lobbing concerns about roads in their constituencies at Transport Minister Mike Henry who was in the hot seat Thursday morning.
Mr. Henry admitted that the allocation for road work is tight in light of the number of roads and projects being undertaken by his ministry.
He however appealed to the MP's to dedicate a portion of the monies they will receive from the Constituency Development Fund for road repair.
"I said as a policy and as an approach from my personal desk, I will try to work with the MP's who are utilizing their Constituency Development Fund in relation to roads and I'm going to go as far as is humanly possible to match that," said Mr. Henry.
He also gave a commitment that despite the constraints, trunk and main roads across the island will be given priority for repair.