slammed in Senate.

And Opposition Senate Leader Maxwell Burgess claimed the cut showed Government "did not care'' about the plight of the less fortunate.

He said: "The very place people should be going for retraining has had its Budget cut.

"They talk about freeing the mind -- this is the place to go to free the mind.

"It's community education which will encourage those less fortunate to enter education and pull themselves up by their bootstrings.'' But he added: "This Government doesn't want to educate them and to prove that they slashed community education.

"We're ensuring these people stay on the wall by cutting community education.'' Sen. Burgess pinpointed the $58,000 (eleven percent) cut in the budget for community education to $463,000 during the Upper House debate on the Development, Opportunity and Government Services Ministry.

And he took a swipe at Government Sen. David Burch -- appointed Chief of Staff at Cabinet Office on a salary of $55,000 in the Budget -- and the plan to appoint a political Attorney General from the PLP side of the House of Assembly.

Sen. Burgess said: "The new Government; they say it's a people's Budget -- the only person I see benefitting up front from this Budget is Senator Burch from being appointed the Premier's Chief of Staff.'' Sen. Walywn Hughes -- in the chair for the debate -- ordered Sen. Burgess to "leave that subject alone.'' Sen. Burgess replied: "We see community education down -- you can't deny that. If the downtrodden can't rely on the Government to keep their commitment. . I'm not into an increase at this stage.

"The less you offer, the less you give, the less the downtrodden can hope to receive.

"They're being denied and now they're being denied by a group of people who just don't care.

"They're $58,000 worse off -- I know whose getting it, but I won't go there just yet.'' And he also slammed the cuts in support for Heritage Month -- down $350,000 (54 percent) on the previous year.

Sen. Burgess said most other countries were using their "cultural base'' to "redefine'' themselves in the run-up to the 21st century.

But he said: "Heritage Month couldn't have been for the people because the budget has been slashed.

And he accused Government of cultural elitism by concentrating more on "cultural people'' than the man and woman in the street.

Sen. Burgess added that Government had gone for "subsidy rather than giving you education -- it can't be this way.'' And he claimed: "The current Government has been going around slashing programmes which involve the people they said the Budget was supposed to be for.'' But Government Sen. Calvin Smith defended the Budget and pointed out that -- due to a declining birthrate in the last few decades -- education spending in the Budget per head had actually gone up.

More Senate, Page 5