Opposition Shadow Finance Minister, Nazim Burke says he is quite satisfied with his response last Monday to the 2004 budget that was presented in the House of Representatives on February 13 by Finance Minister Anthony Boatswain.

During the budget debate in the House, both Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell and the Finance Minister labelled Burke's presentation as disappointing, saying that he did not address the issues in the budget.

Burke, who is both an Economist and Attorney-at-law, was responding to a question posed by GRENADA TODAY about government's reaction to his response on the Budget. The Shadow finance Minister who is the Parliamentary Representative for St. George North-east described his presentation as quite satisfying to him.

Burke who is a senior executive member of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) said that he felt that he responded in the way he ought to. He said the role that was given to him by the Leader of the Opposition was to use the presentation to focus on policy deficiencies in the Mitchell-led government and to identify short comings and inadequacies in the Budget.

According to Burke, his job was to highlight those items that are glaring while the other opposition members were designated to deal with other specific issues that the Congress party wanted to focus on in the budget debate.

The senior NDC member also used the occasion to respond to comments made by House Speaker Lawrence Joseph and Dr. Mitchell about him breaking the rules of parliament by reading his response on the Budget debate.

Burke said that the only reason he prepared the speech was due to the fact that the opposition was told to do so. "I have never trembled before the NNP (New National Party) and will not do so now", he remarked.

On Tuesday, Burke indicated in a radio interview that he was informed by a former Clerk of Parliament and others that he needed to prepare a speech to respond to the Minister of Finance's presentation.

Burke is a newcomer to parliament after winning the parliamentary seat in the November 27 general election. He also addressed the decision of the opposition to stage a walk-out of Parliament last Thursday to protest the decision of House Speaker to allow Prime Minister Mitchell to speak twice in the debate by bringing the proceedings to a closure. Several opposition M.Ps were repeatedly told by Joseph to sit down and stop challenging his ruling as Speaker.

Burke said he strongly believes that the Standing Orders were not observed by the Speaker and that the opposition would not stand idly by and allow their rights to be trampled on. He charged that there are little games and manipulation going on in Parliament and that he will only take his seat if the people who voted for him demanded that he did so.

"We insist that any time anyone tries to trample on the rights of opposition Members of Parliament and the people of Grenada, we will hold Parliament outside (York House), he said. Member of Parliament for the Town of St. George, Peter David who also addressed reporters at the press conference defended Burke's presentation in the budget debate.

David said that each of the seven member on the Opposition side in parliament were given specific portfolios by the leader of the team, Tillman Thomas and as such were expected to speak on them.

"We do not have a one man show, what we have is a team. Our Opposition Leader does not have to do everything", Burke chipped in. The congress party has often accused Prime Minister Mitchell of running a Ôone-man show" in the ruling party.