Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ten spe­cial-in­ter­est groups yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar their re­spec­tive 2010/11 bud­get wish lists.

The dis­cus­sions took place at the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice, St Clair. A re­lease is­sued by Press Sec­re­tary Garvin Nicholas stat­ed the groups rep­re­sent­ed youth, the fash­ion in­dus­try, vi­su­al arts, labour, lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers and the busi­ness sec­tor. The re­lease quot­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar as say­ing she felt the rep­re­sen­ta­tives "felt very com­fort­able and I was pleased that they aired some very heart­felt con­cerns and put for­ward so­lu­tions to many of the is­sues that we are now deal­ing with in this coun­try."

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the dis­cus­sions were "frank and fo­cused," but no de­tails were giv­en about the groups' wish­es. In the re­lease, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed that the con­cerns of the peo­ple would be ad­dressed in the bud­get. The dis­cus­sions were aimed at get­ting the views on the na­tion­al bud­get to be pre­sent­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an on Sep­tem­ber 8. Per­sad-Bisses­sar will con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions on the bud­get to­day when she meets with of­fi­cials from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, re­tirees, the bank­ing and busi­ness sec­tors and the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty.