When the National Assembly on Wednesday evening approved the budgetary allocation of $1,535,717 for the Ministry of Local Government it had been preceded by sharp exchanges over the controversial SLED programme.
The Committee of Supply for the period January to September of this year had approved an allocation of $3.56 billion—$2.01 billion for current expenditure and $1.55 billion for capital expenditure for programmes executed by the now dissolved Ministry of Communities.
During the consideration of estimates for his ministry, Minister of Local Government Nigel Dharamlall claimed that $250 million budgeted for the Sustainable Livelihood and Entrepreneurial Deve-lopment (SLED) programme in 2019 could not be accounted for and threatened prosecution of Opposition members.
