The gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion trad­ed ac­cu­sa­tions over who lacked the po­lit­i­cal will to ad­dress the na­tion’s most press­ing needs, as the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bat­ed the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s re­port dur­ing Tues­day evening’s sit­ting.

For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter and St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the new ad­min­is­tra­tion’s mid-year bud­get re­view gave the il­lu­sion of car­ing about chil­dren but of­fered lit­tle in terms of re­al fi­nan­cial com­mit­ment. Of the $3.14 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing, she said she found no clear al­lo­ca­tion for school vi­o­lence ini­tia­tives or crit­i­cal youth pro­grammes.

“In the al­lo­ca­tion in the re­port that we're dis­cussing, I saw noth­ing… for the com­ple­tion of youth camps, for ex­pand­ing Mi­LAT and MY­PART pro­grammes and con­tin­u­ing the CCC. I saw none of that,” she said, adding that she was “ex­pect­ing that those pro­grammes are ful­ly fund­ed.”