Gail Alexan­der

The 2013 Bud­get will present a clear view of Gov­ern­ment's re­form agen­da and how it in­tends to move be­yond its cur­rent eco­nom­ic po­si­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day. She was speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's first sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives whose new par­lia­men­tary term was of­fi­cial­ly opened at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

"When the na­tion­al bud­get is pre­sent­ed, the na­tion will have a very clear view of the re­form agen­da we have un­der­tak­en, how it has pro­gressed and how we in­tend to move be­yond the cor­ner the IMF ac­knowl­edged that we were able to turn," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. The PM al­so took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to wel­come sev­er­al new­ly-ap­point­ed min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai.

She al­so thanked for­mer sen­a­tors John Sandy, Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, Ver­na St Rose-Greaves and Dan­ny Ma­haraj, say­ing their con­tri­bu­tions helped to place the Gov­ern­ment on a more sol­id foot­ing. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the re­cent Cab­i­net reshuf­fle had "as­sem­bled ex­pe­ri­ence more ap­pro­pri­ate­ly with tal­ent" and al­so out­lined the Gov­ern­ment's leg­isla­tive agen­da, say­ing it in­clud­ed se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment leg­is­la­tion and oth­er mea­sures to help the econ­o­my grow.

She list­ed leg­is­la­tion to add pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty firms to se­cu­ri­ty force num­bers, for pe­nal re­form, to re­vamp prison rules and to use speed-trap guns on the na­tion's high­ways. The PM al­so not­ed leg­is­la­tion was in the works for the en­er­gy sec­tor and it al­so in­clud­ed the bev­er­age con­tain­er law, air pol­lu­tion rules, laws to pro­tect tur­tles and the en­vi­ron­ment and oth­ers to reg­u­late car emis­sions and to de­tect er­rant dri­vers, cam­eras to spot speed­ing mo­torists and an an­ti-dop­ing law for sport.