Leader of the Opposition and Member of Parliament of Marco City, the Hon. Michael Pintard spoke to ZNS News giving his views on the mid-year budget communication delivered by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Hon. Philip Davis.

He said, “the Prime Minister indicated that a part of what he believes will spur the growth to provide the revenue that he has in mind would be small business development, that that has been the tradition. This administration has failed to live up to what happened under the previous administration in providing support and credit to the small and middle sized business sector. Secondly, we believe that this government has unleashed burdens on the business sector. One example is the inability for many businesses to now have access to licenses because of layers of requirements placed on them by the Davis administration. In addition, this administration has increased electricity costs overall.”

Pintard further stated, “and the Prime Minister has projected that in 2024 as well as 2025 he expects somewhere in the order of 4% plus in terms of economic growth while the IMF, who he has quoted, has projected that in many ways we will return to normal trends in economic growth. And so certainly the Prime Minister in my view is stating figures that he knows that historically we have not grown as that level and the headwinds that are ahead of us are likely to have an impact on our ability to grow.”