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But, this year, the Prime Minister kept it short - his shortest yet, relegating most of the budget to an annex which economists can pore over. What he wanted to talk about was public spending - lots of it - mostly from Petrocaribe. It was Mr. Barrow's most political budget yet - and he made no apologies for that. Jules Vasquez reports:

Jules Vasquez reporting
The Prime Minister opened his budget presentation by making clear the overt political overtones of his budget as a response to last week's victory in the municipal elections:

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"There are clear financial implications for what happened last Wednesday. What this all means, Mr Speaker, is that we cannot disappoint those that did not disappoint us. They came 'all in' on our great transformation enterprise after we promised that the tide would be fully at the flood. Now we must not let them down as they did not let us down as they did not let us down"

And in his shortest speech ever, the PM made it clear that this speech called blandly, "Continuing the Transformation" was only an initial outline for a picture that's still taking shape:

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"I serve notice right now that I expect to come back to this House with a mid-year Supplementary. For what I present today cannot long survive the tectonic shift caused by last week's results. And so I declare now that the political muscularity of the voters must be matched by the spending muscularity of the Government."

But the government's fiscal out-turn is not at all muscular: the overall deficit is 86 million dollars more than projected.

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"For Fiscal Year 2014/2015 the Central Government is projecting a primary deficit of $50 million, the equivalent of 1.5 percent of GDP; and an overall deficit of $141 million or 4.1 percent of GDP."

But, the PM seemed hardly bothered - in line with his carefree model of growth through debt:

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Mr Speaker, I freely concede that the proposed Primary and Overall Balances are not optimum in terms of IFI manuals. But for as long as PetroCaribe lasts, we will take full advantage of this extraordinary opportunity gifted us by Venezuela to engage in 16:28 this extraordinary (people-centered) spending."

"We must sidestep the oppressive orthodoxy of "statistics, damn statistics" and focus clearly on the flesh and blood uplift of our people, in order to do this.

"In the current circumstances we would be failing our people if we did not grasp with both hands this chance to press on urgently with the measurable, tangible progress we have been making."

"The policy of this Government will therefore be to continue to exploit its current access to concessionary funding to drive infrastructure, work, poverty-alleviation and social protection for as long as it can."

And there's also going to be an uplift for those paid by the public purse:

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We have allocated the sum of $20 million in the Capital II Program to fund the raise of pay. This translates into at least a 4 percent jump for these GOB employees, and it is on top of last year's 6 percent."

"We are so very pleased that we are once again coming through with 10 percent over two years for the stewards of our education, our administration, our security."

And with that flourish the Prime Minister concluded what may be called his Petrocaribe budget: low cost debt with a high political yield:

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We are conscious that borrowed money, no matter how favourable the terms, must be repaid. So we store up our rainy day fund and we provision to meet our obligations and we hedge against natural disasters."

"Above all, though, we seize this day. We place our imprint on this time. We take full advantage of the plenteousness of the era."

The PM received a standing ovation for what may be the last March budget presentation of his second term in office.

The speech clocked in at 46 minutes, thirty minutes shorter than last year's which took 76 minutes.

The budget will be debated on the 26th and 27th of March.