Peanuts for agriculture

THE EDITOR: I see that the agricultural people have been given some peanuts with grants of $100,000 being offered. It is, however, better than nothing. But the criteria associated with the allocation of these grants should be rather interesting.

The overall allocation of $.54 billion was the smallest amount of money in this budget despite the fact that the nation needs a diversification programme and agriculture seems a leading potential rewarding aspect — especially with regards to the prospect of the export market of our agricultural products to neighbouring nations.

I thought I heard that much of the $.54 billion will be allocated to the building of agricultural roads.

Why do we suddenly need these roads or is it that the road-building projects offer good incentives and kickbacks to politicians and contractors? We will just have to wait and see what is really associated with this $.54 billion allocation to agriculture.

With the digestion of the details of the budget, we are most likely to hear the moans and groans from the ordinary citizens who will have to pay the price at this time, which the Government classified as a recession.

GA MARQUES via e-mail