Mr. Speaker, Science, Energy and Technology are extremely important to national development. Their potential to impact our development by generating increased economic growth and job creation cannot be over-emphasized.
I have come to this important office with a clear sense of what is required and where we intend to go in moving our people from Poverty to Prosperity.
Mr. Speaker, I am not inhibited by the vestiges or politics of the past. Upon taking office, my team and I carefully examined existing programmes and those that were in the pipeline.
Mr. Speaker, political maturity and good sense compel me to retain, tweak, improve and expand where necessary, programmes that make eminent sense, and reconsider or recast those that don’t.
We on this side Mr. Speaker, are not in the business of self-aggrandizement or political immaturity. We are not in the business of discontinuing programmes simply because they were introduced by the previous administration.
My presentation today Mr. Speaker, heralds the beginning of a new discourse, a much needed discussion that centres on advancing three key areas of national development and prosperity for our nation, and these three areas form the pillar of my portfolio responsibility – Science, Energy and Technology.
Mr. Speaker, my presentation today will take a slightly different slant from the type, to which we have long become accustomed in this Honourable House. I will not be expending too much energy on a laborious presentation that takes us through the facts, figures and performance of the various agencies within the Ministry’s portfolio. These are detailed in the Ministry Papers,
which I now lay before the House.
Along that vein, I wish to table the Ministry papers which capture:
The Agencies’ plans and programmes for the financial year 2016/17; and highlights of the Ministry’s policies, programmes and achievements for the review period 2015/16.