Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle says Prime Minister’s 2026 Budget Presentation “stuffed with selective statistics” and “delivered with arrogance and bluff”
Leader of the Opposition and MP for All Saints East and St. Luke, Jamale Pringle, is currently delivering a forceful rebuttal to the 2026 Budget, accusing Prime Minister Gaston Browne’s administration of misleading the public with what he described as inflated figures and a distorted picture of national progress.
Speaking after the Prime Minister’s “People-Centred Growth and Development Budget,” Pringle said the country cannot rely on “high-sounding adjectives” and “selective statistics” when the lived reality of ordinary citizens tells a very different story.
“My presentation this morning is entitled ‘The People’s Reality versus the Deception of Figures,’” Pringle declared. “As I walk through the communities of All Saints East and St. Luke, and as I drive through the potholed roads in every single constituency… I realise one thing: the Antigua and Barbuda that the Prime Minister described exists only in his mind.”
The Opposition Leader dismissed the budget as neither people-centred nor grounded in truth.
“Let us call it by its rightful name,” he said. “This is a tax-and-thief budget. It is built on the broken backs of the poor to finance the lavish lifestyle of the well-connected.”
Pringle vowed to “dismantle the budget page by page,” alleging what he termed “questionable mathematics,” corruption within ministries, and a widening disconnect between the government’s narrative and the hardships faced by the public.
Turning to fiscal claims made by the Prime Minister, Pringle challenged Browne’s announcement of a projected primary surplus of $254.9 million and an overall surplus of $116.3 million.
“He stood there, chest out, claiming the treasury is overflowing,” Pringle said. “But if this government is truly swimming in surplus, why are we here today asking to borrow nearly half a billion dollars? Why is the Prime Minister begging the CAF bank for $300 million?”
He also questioned the government’s approach to local lending, criticising the administration’s negotiation of a $100 million loan from a consortium of local banks for roadworks.
“If there is such a surplus, why is he strong-arming local banks to borrow $100 million for road construction?” he asked.
Pringle issued a direct caution to lending institutions, urging them to demand accountability from the government.
“We have seen how this administration operates when it borrows in the name of the people,” he warned. “We have seen the lack of transparency. Look at the vehicle-gate scandal. I urge the banks to exercise extra due diligence to ensure funds go directly toward the purposes for which they are borrowed.”
The Opposition Leader argued that the government’s narrative of economic strength conflicts sharply with its borrowing habits and its failure, he said, to address basic needs such as employment, cost of living pressures, and deteriorating infrastructure.
“This administration has lost its way, lost its soul, and lost its mandate to govern,” Pringle asserted. “There is a better way — the United Progressive Party way.”
We know but what can we do, the rich will live and the poor will die, the job programs walk away pay is 350+ per week what a mother with children do with that rent, food, 14.00 per gallon gas, utilities we can’t steal utilities and get away like the big supermarkets, put foreigners overseas department of government so when taxpayers money missing they run back to country of origin, ONLY GOD CAN FIX THIS MESS.
As usual, Pringle is baffled and confounded by statistics. Woodwork teachers were never expected to do much more than measure lumber and weigh nails. He makes the same criticism year after year, yet the Hon. PM continues to deluver year after year. Antugua news, kindly define “robust’ for the unimpressed listeners of your star Pringle!
Pringle delivered a strong response. Those borrowing figures really not lining up with the surplus story
Every year Pringle comes with criticism but never offers real solutions. What exactly is the UPP’s plan?
He’s absolutely correct. If we have so much surplus, why we begging CAF for $300 million? Make it make sense. But den again this is the land of the dont give a shyte.
“This is a tax-and-thief budget” ouchhhh I felt that
Its not for God to fix! It is for the people on Antigua to fix BY VOTING THEM OUT!
How much longer will the people of Antigua put up with the Blantant lies of Gaston Brown? How much longer will the allow that narcissist to pull the wool over your eyes. There is an English say, “wake up and smell the coffee”. Antiguans better do just that before you become slaves in your own country.
Voters need to wake up and smell the coffee and vote for the UPP.
It’s hard to know who to trust sometimes.
Pringle raises legitimate questions about the fiscal claims. Government should clarify how surpluses and new borrowing can coexist.