Budget Wishes

Amidst calls for a review of the minimum wage, appointments for teachers, permanent positions for police officers and reviews of the medical system, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit on Wednesday presented the nation's 2018/ 2019 budget.

Here is a sample of the budget wishes of a few organisations and a leading social commentator:

Thomas Letang, General Secretary of the Dominica Public Service Union (DPSU): He wants government to make provisions in the 2018/19 budget for an interim 5% increase in salaries to public officers "pending the outcome of salary negotiations."

Mervin Alexander, President of the Dominica Association of Teachers (DAT): He wants the government to make provisions in the budget for the appointment of more teachers and also for a review of the long – outstanding job classification.

Chairman Jefferson Drigo of the Police Welfare Association (PWA): He proposes that all full-time special constables serving in the CDPF for more than ten years should be permanently established and should not be contracted.

Athie Martin, Environmentalist and Development Expert: He says "The single and critical purpose of this budget is to explain how the fiscal, financial and pubic programme project and tools available to the government are going to help us achieve "resilience"

He continued, "The budget speech should explain in simple language what resilience is and should be done for each sector, agriculture, housing etc. In health care, I am looking to hear two things, what are we going to do to restore/reestablish primary health care as a critical platform for a healthy nation given the facts that our communities are confronted with critical non- communicable diseases and also the communicable diseases like leptospirosis as a result of the impact of Hurricane Maria".