The bud­get de­bate end­ed quick­ly­on Sat­ur­day af­ter the Op­po­si­tion failed to pro­duce a speak­er.

There was a mo­ment of con­fu­sion on the Par­lia­ment floor be­fore Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert re­turned and wrapped up the pro­ceed­ings.

"It is ob­vi­ous that the pre­sen­ta­tion by the oth­er side has col­lapsed and there is a very good rea­son for that be­cause there is noth­ing in this 2021/2022 bud­get that they can get their teeth in­to," Im­bert said.

The de­bate start­ed at 10 am on Sat­ur­day and moved from speak­er to speak­er un­til just af­ter 5.30 pm when the Op­po­si­tion was un­able to pro­duce any­one af­ter the MP for D'Abadie/O'Meara Lisa Mor­ris-Julien.

For al­most 15 min­utes there was si­lence and crosstalk prompt­ing deputy speak­er Es­mond Forde to re­mind the House that it was still in ses­sion.

Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George re­turned and briefly con­ferred with Forde.

"This 2022 bud­get is one of the most trans­for­ma­tion­al bud­gets pre­sent­ed in this Par­lia­ment," Im­bert said.

Im­bert said that his pre­sen­ta­tion was a "blue­print" for the growth and trans­for­ma­tion of T&T.

"I've lis­tened very care­ful­ly to the mem­bers op­po­site, there is noth­ing that I have heard from the oth­er side that re­al­ly war­rants a re­sponse. Very, very lit­tle," he said.

"In fact, I can sim­ply con­clude this wind­ing up by say­ing I beg to move. But since mem­bers op­po­site had noth­ing to say, I was very dis­ap­point­ed in the leader of the Op­po­si­tion."

Im­bert said Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar lacked the sta­mi­na to speak for as long as he spoke.

"I could have eas­i­ly have spo­ken for an­oth­er two or three hours," he said, adding that Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave up af­ter two hours.

The bud­get was passed and the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee was set for Mon­day.

Browne: Bud­get was well-re­ceived

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne sound­ed a warn­ing against tak­ing med­ical ad­vice from so­cial me­dia.

Browne par­tic­i­pat­ed in the bud­get de­ba­teon Sat­ur­day and called on peo­ple to care­ful­ly con­sid­er ad­vice on so­cial me­dia.

"Many of those rant­i­ng on so­cial me­dia and rav­ing and dis­cour­ag­ing you the cit­i­zens from be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed, many of them are al­ready vac­ci­nat­ed or will soon wish they were as Delta spreads around the world," he said.

He al­so ad­vised the young peo­ple to "ig­nore the naysay­ers."

"I want to thank the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance for what I see as a vi­sion­ary bud­get that has all the stim­uli that our econ­o­my needs," he said.

"He did not dress it up and call it a stim­u­lus pack­age like in a rich de­vel­oped na­tion but that is what it is," Browne said.

Browne al­so said that the bud­get was well-re­ceived.

"There was tremen­dous ac­claim for the fis­cal mea­sures an­nounced by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance," Im­bert said.

Browne said that nor­mal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive busi­ness groups like the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Busi­ness Cham­bers and the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce were more ac­cept­ing of the bud­get.