Day one of the debate he was absent. On the morning of day two, he was again absent. The question: would he absent himself from the debate in a show of contempt? But on the afternoon of day two he turned up; presumably he was using the time away from the parliament in preparation for his budget presentation.

His turn eventually came and in a control and confident mood he set about dissecting the government’s budget for the year 2010/2011. But before he went to his analysis of the country’s depressing fiscal position he reminded the country of how the government had abused the office of the Governor General to score political points against him.

He was referring to the Governor General’s throne speech that made much of the Ramsahoye Report of which he was the main subject; and the need to avoid a repeat of the circumstances that warranted the Ramsahoye commission of inquiry. Retribution had come to visit Kenny Anthony and he did not know it. It was thirteen years ago, when Sir George Mallet the then Governor General, suffered similar political abuse while delivering the first throne speech of the new Labour government of which Kenny Anthony was prime minister.

Kenny Anthony homed in on the government’s high level of unsustainable public debt and widening budget deficit. He went further to indicate that the IMF was very concerned about the direction St Lucia’s fiscal position was heading and the growing use of off- budget financing. Off-budget financing is a reference to the practice of government contracts being granted under a design, finance and construct arrangement. Under this arrangement government is allowed to defer accounting for its debt on projects long after they have been completed.

The former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance was clearly upbeat and demonstrating an inner knowledge of the compilation of government budgets—that not all revenue projections are necessarily realizable. He was making the point that the revenue projections in the 2010/2011 budget were not realistic given the country was just crawling out of a recession. His frequent use of economic statistics relating to the St Lucian economy, though dismal, was at times reminiscent of the statistical-spewing Tourism Minister, Allen Chastanet.

Fifty minutes into his presentation he had painted a picture of St Lucia as a sick patient, with a poor fiscal position, 20 percent unemployment and rising crime. He was on a high. Then the speaker of the house interrupted his presentation to remind him that he had ten minutes left. He nonchalantly turned to his Labour colleagues and indicated that they ask whatever extra time they wanted. Kenny Anthony was not expecting any generous extra time from the government side, there was no precedence for this. The member for Soufriere moved that an extra sixty minutes be granted to the former prime minister to complete his presentation. Before the parliament could consider the motion a counter motion came from Richard Frederick the Member for Castries Central. Frederick unexpectedly moved that the member for Vieux Fort South be given an extra two hours. If ever Kenny Anthony was wrong-footed in the parliament then that was it; the Frederick motion was accepted. So stunned was Kenny Anthony that it took him some time before he could resume his presentation. Not even the customary thank you, to his parliamentary colleagues was forthcoming.

Kenny Anthony was no longer the same. He began to struggle; what started as a spirited contribution was now clearly running out of gas. It appeared that his day and half out of the parliament was in preparation for a one hour presentation and no more.

There were times when he appeared to be warming up again but for a brief moment- only to return to a cold mode. There was clearly no plan to go past an hour and it was showing, and at times embarrassingly. Now two hours into his presentation and he appeared more than willing to make way for his nemesis, Richard Frederick. A whole hour of extra time had been forfeited by the former prime minister. But this still did not make up for the failure of government MPees, on day one, to allow the Member of Castries East, Philip J Pierre the extra hour he requested to complete his presentation.

Richard Frederick was in typical attack-dog mode. He wasted no time reminding the parliament of financial mismanagement on the part of Kenny Anthony and how the Opposition Leader was in no position to give financial advice to the government. Frederick was also bringing into question the Opposition Leader’s loyalty to his country. According to the government minister Anthony was in St Vincent at a Labour Party rally denouncing ministers of the St Lucia government. What Frederick perhaps was unaware of, was that Anthony had boycotted St Lucia’s Independence Day parade this year to be the guest speaker at the said St Vincent Labour Party rally at which he chose to make his disparaging comments. Readers would have to judge the appropriateness of such behaviour by a former prime minister of St Lucia.

Kenny Anthony surprisingly sat through Frederick’s presentation till the end; by this time he had had enough and decided to make his way home. The Prime Minister would not have the chance to taunt him nor would Lenard Montoute and Rufus Bousquet, the remaining two speakers before Stephenson King would close the debate on Friday, the third day of the debate. The 2010/2011 Budget debate proved to be as bland as the budget itself.