Budget 2016: anti poor, repackaged – Opposition Leader

… no salary increases; nothing for rice
… no clear poverty reduction, economic plan
… Budget anti development; anti poor; and visionless

BY EDWARD LAYNE

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo is neither impressed nor pleased with the 2016 National

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo

Budget, presented Friday by Finance Minister Winston Jordan, describing the $230 billion estimate as “disappointing”.
Jagdeo, speaking at a news conference immediately after the more than three-hour presentation by Jordan, said that while the budget is themed, “Stimulating Growth, Restoring Confidence… the Good Life Beckon” it lacks the accompanying measures to realise this theme.
Jagdeo described the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change’s (APNU/AFC) financial plan for 2016 as “anti-development and anti-poor”.
“Ask the ordinary people, the business community and others who are looking for this anticipated stimulus package that we have heard so much about and where is it, it’s not stimulus, the billions that they spending in infrastructure is coming from a lot of old projects,” Jagdeo said.

Repackaged budget
He added that the budget is a mere repacking of PPP/C ideas, singling out projects like the specialty hospital, the bypass road to link the East Bank Demerara to the East Coast Demerara, the East Demerara Highway expansion, the Citizens Security Programme, Hinterland initiatives, and School Uniform Programme.
“You have a lot of the projects that we had in place to achieve strategic objectives but the measures are very important too, a budget measure is very important and it’s in times of global crises you have to have a national response through the budget. The budget framework that we left from the past cannot be the budget framework now given what’s happening globally and given what has taken place locally. We believe that the government focus is just on doing some of the things the PPP left and collecting more taxes and spending. We believe that there has not been enough focus on helping the sectors that generate wealth. That is more important than anything else because it is what sustains medium- and long-term growth,” Jagdeo stated.
He said that while the minister said he wanted to stimulate growth and restore confidence, particularly in the economy, when one listened to the measures announced by the minister, they are not going to restore confidence nor restore growth.

Budget disconnect
“There is a huge disconnect between this budget, its orientation, its stated objectives and the policies, programmers and measures put in place. If there are two words that I can use, that I have heard people mention from the time they exited that Chamber, the two words were anti-development and anti-poor”, Jagdeo added.
The Opposition Leader said the financial plan lacks measures that will enhance production or bolster the productive sectors.
“In the rice sector we heard one sentence from the Minister of Finance. In the sugar industry he said they’re putting in $9B in subsidy although the Prime Minister in New York had announced the budget will have $12 billion in it. There are no measures to assist the mining sector… he spoke about increased production this year and about the two new gold mines, but both of them were projects developed under the PPP… very little for any other sector of the economy, nothing for construction, nothing for manufacturing, very little for tourism, in fact minimal amounts for tourism, because his primary tool for bringing more visitors was the cleanup of the city. We have not seen any measure to stimulate production, those are the sectors that are earring in the country,” the Opposition Leader highlighted.

Social services
On the question of the social sector, Jagdeo noted that the measures in the budget are not designed to help the poor and vulnerable.
“They pension was increased by a paltry sum, in fact $1200. The increase this year cannot compensate them for the loss of the water subsidy and the electricity subsidy. Our pensioners are poorer under this government than they have been under the PPP government. Secondly we saw increase in public assistance again a paltry sum. We have seen no increase in wages and salaries. We have had an increase in the threshold that will not make a difference in people’s lives. So this budget has absolutely nothing for poor people, those were the areas where one would have thought that the government would seek to transfer more resources to the moist vulnerable in our country,” he noted.
Jagdeo added that the budget on the other hand is designed to serve the interest of a selected few closely aligned to the APNU/AFC Administration.
“I see a great deal of special interest in this budget, new car importers and few of them have benefit. That’s for vehicles and for tyres. There is one company in particular that will benefit significantly from graduating of the excise tax on alcohol. That is again special interest, I have seen special interest in treating the foreign service differently, these are all issues relating to special interest, he noted.
Jagdeo concluded that the Budget is a disappointing one which failed to meet the expectations of Guyanese.
Meanwhile, PPP/C Member of Parliament Irfaan Ali in an invited comment said the Budget is a continuation of mainly PPP/C initiatives, especially in infrastructure, many of which the APNU/AFC cut from previous budgets while in the opposition.
“After a delay of two years when the APNU/AFC cut all resources for hinterland airstrips from the PPP/C National Budget, they have now come around to the same measure in their 2016 budget. Sorry, two years late,” Ali said.