Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday will give his first Budget reply in three years in the House of Representatives at the Red House, Port of Spain, today at 10 a.m. when the Budget debate continues.

Before this, however, Attorney General John Jeremie is expected to give a statement on the UdeCOTT Commission of Enquiry debacle. He is likely to announce that the Validation Act would be brought to the Parliament to validate all that has been done by the Prof John Uff Commission of Enquiry.

Panday, who last gave such a presentation in 2005, was out of the Parliament when the last three budgets were presented. He was out in 2006 and 2007 because of the two-year jail sentence imposed by former chief magistrate Sherman McNicolls for his failure to declare a London bank account to the Integrity Commission.

By the time the McNicolls judgment was overturned by the Appeal Court, Panday’s seat had been declared vacant after his MPs failed to apply for an extension of his period of absence as required by the Constitution. The House Speaker, therefore, declared his seat vacant. Panday went to the High Court to contest the issue, but the court upheld the declaration. Panday indicated that he planned to appeal, but by then, the Parliament was dissolved for elections and the matter became academic.

Panday returned to Parliament following the 2007 General Election but was suspended in February 2008 by the House for gross disrespect to the Chair. Under those circumstances, his suspension lasted for the entire session of Parliament, which ended in December 2008.

On all three occasions, Kamla Persad-Bissessar-who was appointed opposition leader by the president during the period of Panday’s absence from the Parliament, following his conviction in 2006-gave the budget reply. She was again selected by the United National Congress MPs last year, during the period of Panday’s suspension, to lead off the Opposition’s reply.

So today is a big day for Panday. Particularly, having regard to the current leadership dispute within the UNC, Panday has to demonstrate that he is capable of providing the leadership the Opposition desperately needs if it is to be regarded as a credible alternative.

Panday has the right to speak for three hours and ten minutes, the same amount of time Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira took to deliver the Budget on Monday.

But Panday, who has a cold, may find his voice may be under some pressure to sustain a three-hour, ten-minute presentation. In any event, the opposition leader will be judged not by the length but by the quality of his presentation.

The Opposition is entering this budget with at least one beef-that one of the main documents used to analyse Government’s performance-the Review of the Economy, is yet to be tabled.

’We would have needed that information in the preparation of our budget response, and it is extremely distressing to know that the document is not ready,’ Opposition chief economic spokesman, Vasant Bharath, stated yesterday.

’We need the Review of the Economy to do a detailed analysis of Government’s performance,’ he added, noting that Nunez-Tesheira had stated very little about what Government had done, and that the population was in ’complete darkness’ as to how the money has been spent over the past year.