Budget 2013 contains several opposition manifesto promises - AG
Written by, Sunday, 14 April 2013 23:07 Source
EVERY major segment of the population was addressed in a material and a significant way; their social and economic well being were highlighted in Budget 2013, and presentations made by Government parliamentarians collectively and individually outlined the various allocations which clearly demonstrated the benefits to each major segment, according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall while speaking on a recent televised programme.
He also pointed to infrastructural projects intended to benefit all Guyanese, such as the Amaila Falls Hydro project, the Airport Expansion, Specialty Hospital, the new Demerara Harbour Bridge under feasibility study, the new highway from Providence to Diamond, and from Soesdyke to Timehri, the new highway from Hydronie to Parika, the highway along the East Bank Berbice and other projects.
AG Nandlall posited that while all Guyanese know of the substantial progress made in the country, he said the opposition denies the existence of growth which has taken place for the last seven years consecutively, when the Caribbean and the world have been in recession.
“It is incredible for you to deny the reality that you see. But we have an opposition that denies the existence of all these things and chooses a few things and blows them up, for example inadequate health facilities somewhere in the interior, and even a few in Georgetown,” he stated.
Acknowledging that all is not perfect, the AG explained that this was the reason behind increased budgets annually. “As the economy grows it allows us to spend more. Every year we increase salaries, old age pension, the level of social and infrastructural services, increase production, and reduce taxes,” he added.
Correcting problems, he stated, cannot be done all at once, “it takes time and it depends on the availability of resources and those resources are available based upon a number of realities, some of which are within our control and some that are outside of our sphere of influence,” he pointed out.
The AG does not believe that some of the comments made by some opposition parliamentarians are justified. He focused on those made about the education sector, instances that relate to Region 5 that were not contained in the budget, and blatant mismanagement according to the opposition, of public resources.
In education, he said the inadequacies were recognised, hence the largest singular budgetary allocation to that sector. Management issues and inadequacies at public sector institutions are being addressed through investment in modern systems to bring about changes.
He suggested that the contentions made by the opposition may have been derived from the fact that both sides have their own individual way of addressing issues. “There is nothing wrong with that. What is important is that we both recognise the inadequacies, the inefficiencies and the mischief which has to be remedied.”
Consultation – Greenidge’s absence
“Consultation must be genuine and redound to the benefit of the people, consultation must not be used as a catwalk for political fashion shows…the Opposition simply want consultation for the sake of consultation so that they can gain some form of political aggrandisement,” he said.
AG Nandlall pointed to the calls for budget consultation and the fact that APNU’s Carl Greenidge was unavailable. He stated that the Minister of Finance who heads the government team, in pursuit of this initiative has reported repeatedly of his efforts to engage the opposition and the extent to which his efforts were successful.
“He emphasised the fact that Mr. Carl Greenidge who is the opposition point person on budget matters absented himself from the country at the most critical point in that process, and the minister has emails that were exchanged between himself and Mr. Carl Greenidge at that critical time, with him the minister calling on Carl Greenidge to come forward and let’s talk and Carl Greenidge saying ok etc., so there is documentary evidence which we can produce to establish that Mr. Greenidge was unavailable,” he stated.
What is significant is that consultation must not be confined to the opposition; there was consultation by the government with various stakeholders in the country, the business sector, the farmers, the trade union movements, the religious organisations and the Amerindian organisations and the various representative groupings.
Bail-out
AG, Nandlall explained that the Opposition parliamentarians have been critical of the government’s subsidies to the GPL and GUYSUCO calling it a bail-out. “But there is nothing wrong with a government bailing out key and critical industries that have become vulnerable. In fact, it is a government’s duty to do so when those industries affect the lives of a substantial part of the population,” he emphasised.
In citing an example AG Nandlall pointed out that the Obama Administration injected billions of dollars to bail-out General Motors and Chevrolet companies because if those companies were to go under hundreds of thousands of American jobs would have been lost, and thousands of lives destroyed.
“The same position applies to GPL and GUYSUCO,” he noted. Mr. Greenidge and Mr Nagamootoo called GPL a black hole and said no subsidy should be given to the power company.
“If GPL is to close down tomorrow they have not told us from where we would get electricity to run this country, similarly GUYSUCO directly employs 18,000 people, each with a family of four and who are directly affected and another 20,000 -25,000 indirectly affected,” Nandlall posited.
"If we were to close the sugar industry tomorrow, who will feed the 120,000 mouths?" he asked. “The Opposition is not telling us that… it’s like a parent having a sick child you don’t abandon the child, you take your savings to ensure the child gets medical attention until it becomes strong again.
Implementing major policies/initiatives in AFC, APNU manifestoes in budget
What is of fundamental importance, he stated is, that having gone through the three manifestoes, the PPP manifesto at the 2011 election, and those of the AFC and the APNU, policies and programmes were extracted and put into the budget.
He explained that the comparison of the three manifestos resulted in finding common grounds, principles, initiatives, policies, areas of priorities and concerns and extracting them.
“That is why Mr. Ramjattan for example was forced to admit that the 2012 budget though they cut it, had in it many of the initiatives that they had in their manifesto. Dr. Ashni Singh was able to emphatically point out several of the initiatives which are in the APNU manifesto which he pointed out were in this budget and they were criticised. Those very initiatives were criticised by the opposition in their speeches,” the AG contended.
“More significantly…the greatest form of consultation is if I take your policies and implement them…Is it not more effective that I take your policy as expressed in your manifesto and I implement them?” he questioned.
This, the AG explained was because many of the postures taken were for political purposes, “because they are in the opposition they must oppose, and therefore what they promised the Guyanese people was not important. What is significant for the advancement of the welfare of the Guyanese people was not important, what was important for the development of Guyana as a country was not important, what was of paramount importance for them was taking positions that would serve their political interest and would advance their political agenda, and that I found to be unfortunate in the budget debate.”
Opposition Leader David Granger’s description that the 2013 budget is a ‘cardboard budget’ that does not meet the needs of the country or the concerns of the people would mean that his issue is one of vision, he observed. “That’s a visionary impairment because there are so many initiatives that touch right across the length and breadth of this country,” he stated.
The AG highlighted the projects listed under the Amerindian Development Fund which would ensure the building of the village economy within every Amerindian village; the small business sector rotating fund for small businessmen to use as collateral to access loans at the commercial bank, the Women of Worth (WOW) programme specifically intended to benefit poor and single mothers, increase in old age pension, subsidy to GPL for old age pensioners, reduction in income tax and mortgage incentives for first time home owners. “So he who says that he cannot see that this budget has anything for poor people is figuratively blind,” the AG said.
No power to cut
Slashing the National Budget of any country cannot redound to the benefit of the people of that country, Minster Nandlall declared as he reiterated that the opposition has no power to cut or reduce the estimates.
The Chief Justice, ruling in the 2012 budget case had stated that: “It can readily be seen that it is the Minister of Finance (or other designated Minister) who bears the constitutional responsibility and duty of preparing and laying before the National Assembly the estimates of both revenues and expenditure. This is so because it is the executive who has the constitutional responsibility of managing and piloting the ship of State and, as a matter of practical reality, the administrative machinery for preparing such estimates. It can also readily be seen that, in respect of expenditure, it is the National Assembly which bears the constitutional responsibility of performing an oversight or a gate keeping function of approval or non approval over the estimates of expenditure to ensure that they are in consonance with what will be necessary to fuel the implementation of the plans, programmes and policies of the executive government. This is not a power of making estimates of expenditure (which is for the Minister). The power of approval must therefore be distinguished from a power of determination of estimates of expenditure.
The AG stated that, opposition parliamentarians and parties would agitate for increase in expenditure, but in Guyana, the opposition does the opposite- canvasses, agitates and struggles to reduce government’s expenditure, that it is prepared to make available for the benefit and the welfare of the citizens.
The AG repeated what he had said during his parliamentary presentation on the budget, regarding the opposition’s stated intention to cut the budget.
“The cutting of the budget has nothing to do with the national interest and what is important for the people. It has to do with the satisfaction of some opposition craving."
When the budget is cut those responsible are not hurting the government, they are hurting the people who are to benefit from the monies that are to be spent, he said, but the pleasure which they seem to derive from the process of cutting overwhelms their obligation to serve the people’s interest and to act in the people’s best welfare.