THERE WILL be no reduction in the money allocated to members of parliament (MPs) to spend in their constituencies this year despite the financial downturn in Jamaica.

The Sunday Gleaner has confirmed that each MP will again be allocated $40 million in the Budget, which will be tabled in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

This will mean a total allocation of just over $2.4 billion to the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

Expected allocation in place

While there has been no official confirmation from the Government, Shahine Robinson, junior minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, last week indicated that she expected the allocation for the CDF to remain in place.

Robinson said all 60 MPs had used up their full allotment during the just-ended fiscal year, even though some projects might have not been started.

According to Robinson, once the project is approved and passed on to the implementing agency, the money would be allocated.

However, any MP who had failed to submit projects by the mid-February deadline would have lost the portion that had not been spent.

"The money would not carry over into the following year," Robinson said.

Establishment of CDF

The CDF was established by Prime Minister Bruce Golding in the 2008-2009 fiscal year in keeping with a Jamaica Labour Party election manifesto commitment to provide MPs with a portion of the Budget to spend on constituency projects.

The JLP had promised that 2.5 per cent of the total Budget would be allocated to the CDF, but faced with the economic reality after the 2007 general election victory, that was reduced to less than one per cent of the $489 billion budget presented.

With the total figure in the new Budget expected to remain at $2.4 billion, it means that the CDF will be a smaller portion of the total budget, which should be well above the $507 billion which was the revised Budget for last year.