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Ervin Perez - Managing Director, Legacy Fund Ltd.
"Well clearly the public servants have gotten their increments. So there's going to be no impact on their wages, in fact they're going to be a small increase in their wages but when we look at government expenditure cuts in capital expenditure, about 98 mil, whenever government slows down economic activity there's always a fall out. The question we were asking is if that cut would be replaced by private sector investing. If that doesn't happen we will see a further slow down in the economy and some challenges for the low skilled worker out there who probably gets his income or her income from activities from construction etc. We particularly didn't see it as an austerity budget, as one that did not really take a clear look at what we need to do now to deal with the issues that we're facing. But then it's difficult to pass that kind of budget. Nobody want to be taxed, everyone is saying we can't afford a tax, and everyone is saying we need more revenues, we need more government expenditure. So it's a real challenge to satisfy all the different demands."

Reporter
"There's a particular perspective that has been shared with the media in respect of the attempt to grow by 3. Some odd percent given the fact that over the past few years government has been operating in the red. As an economist what are you views on this so called turn around?"

Ervin Perez
"Well to be honest I have been a bit confused, about the economics that we see. Whenever economists like to say or use little heuristics to see where the market is going. So usually in a recession what you would see is very little construction, but when you look around in our economy there seems to be a lot of construction taking place. The other thing is usually you also looking restaurants, you look in restaurants to eat, you see in a recession restaurants are usually empty and bear, everyone is cutting back. You guys go out on Thursdays and Fridays it's crowded, everyone is eating. So the question is do we have an economy that is Jekyll and Hyde? Is there something happening that the SIB data is missing? From our perspective we think that the informal economy is huge. What does that mean? The economy that's not recorded is large, and so its impact what you really see. That does not mean that the certain industries like the commodity industries are not struggling. The shrimp, citrus and bananas we're having challenges where and we have to work with those industries. But it says that perhaps we have an economy that's not really integrated, and some sectors like the tourism service sectors might be growing leaps and bounds and other traditional areas are suffering. It's quite a mix, and something has to be done in terms of the numbers so we can see what's really happening in the economy I think."