Budget debate…AFC wants transfer of $35B from NICIL- slashing of bloated Ministries

“We have to use the cutting knife on salaries of the over-bloated Ministerial bureaucracy, on travel on first-class tickets, and allowances to stay at five-star hotels. We must end the travesty of producing champions in globe-trotting whilst our pensioners go without bread”- Moses Nagamootoo

The Alliance For Change (AFC), which holds seven seats in the National Assembly, yesterday called forgovernment to transfer billions of dollars, said to be held by the controversial state-controlled National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) to the Consolidated Fund.

According to Moses Nagamootoo, senior executive and AFC Parliamentarian, there is an estimated $35B that is supposed to be in the custody of NICIL, which handles sale proceeds of government assets. He was at the time addressing the National Assembly as the week-long debate began on the 2012 National Budget.

Nagamootoo also called for government to re-examine the budget, to “comb it for waste” and to find a way where moneys could be found to help disadvantaged workers, pensioners and other vulnerable groups.

“We have to use the cutting knife on salaries of the over-bloated Ministerial bureaucracy, on travel on first-class tickets and allowances to stay at five-star hotels. We must end the travesty of producing champions in globe-trotting whilst our pensioners go without bread.”

According to Nagamootoo, a former senior executive of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) who joined the AFC shortly before elections last November, the administration continues to be saddled with one controversy after another, including contracts for drugs, the US$15.4M Amaila Falls road project, computer and book scams, and host of other damning allegations.

CORRUPTION

Nagamootoo also cited the $300M Hydroclave waste disposal system for the Georgetown Hospital which cost appears unusually high; the rental of Caterpillar generators for GPL when it could have been bought; the controversial Marriott Hotel in which US$21M of taxpayers’ money is slated to be spent in yet unclear circumstances; the Amaila Falls Hydro project, the cost of which  is still mounting and the recently announced sale of the 20% shares government has in GT&T to a Hong Kong company for US$30M. “No mention was made of this sale in the budget, though our coffers have been getting some $500M annually from our GT&T shares.”

According to Nagamootoo, the sale of the GT&T shares has raised some troubling questions, including whether the deal was a good one. The AFC MP pointed out that Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh is “intimately” involved as Chairman of NICIL’s Board, and he should ensure that proceeds of the US$30M (G$6B) be paid to the Consolidated Fund, which is the central account that controls all government funds.

“It is in the interest of all working people that all funds held in special accounts like NICIL and the Lottery be paid into the Consolidated Fund, since the reasons that have been advanced year after year for wage restraint, was lack of affordability.”

Nagamootoo insisted that the intention of any budget should be to reduce poverty, but this was not reflected in what was presented.4

ACUTE POVERTY

“Yes, I agree that our economy has grown…but notwithstanding the boasts of achievements, there is still acute poverty in Guyana.”

Nagamootoo slammed the “princely” increase of $600 monthly for old age pension from $7,500 to $8,100 and social assistance – by $400 to $5,900 – as totally inadequate. “Indeed, the meagre pension and social assistance is not a lifeline, but a suicide belt.”

The AFC executive insists that it is a glaring indictment of failure by government that it admits 19% of Guyanese lived in extreme poverty in 2006 while another 36% exists in moderate poverty…the more serious impact being felt in rural and hinterland communities.”

“The budget has failed to provide any innovation in new agricultural schemes and industrial zones that would reduce joblessness and prevent the housing revolution from becoming a bubble.

“Instead, we continue to pour large sums into capital infrastructural projects, mostly with borrowed moneys. The latest is for a new international airport for airbuses and jumbo jets, when we don’t even have a national carrier or own a domestic airplane. I am afraid this is a Panday-like Piarco project, the likes of which got him into all kinds of troubles that have attracted criminal charges.”

Nagamootoo also stressed that Guyana has, with a population of 750,000, one of the highest per capita debts in the world. “Each child born in the Jagdeo/Ramotar era would henceforth carry a debt tag at birth of $333,333.”

DEBATE ON 2012 BUDGET:

SPEECH BY MOSES V. NAGAMOOTOO

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

10^TH APRIL, 2012

May It Please Your Honour: The last Speaker (Hon. Irfaan Ali) painted a rosy picture of Guyana, with pie in the sky, and warned that we would be judged if we did not support the 2012 Budget. Well, the Good Book advised us not to judge, lest we be judged, and the people of Guyana have already passed judgment on the PPP Government, and have condemned them to a Minority in this Parliament.

Obviously the people do not believe when they say that Guyana’s growth is bigger than our Caribbean countries, for if it were so, this Government should pay workers and pensioners more, and people should not be forced to migrate to these very Caribbean countries!

Mr. Speaker: The 2012 National Budget was presented in a backdrop of a distressing challenge to the independence and sovereignty of this 10^th Parliament. I fear that the futility of that challenge will play out here, in this debate and the conclusion of it, and that the majority, in true libertarian fashion, will prevail.

This is not intended as a warning, but as an advice to the Government Benches, that we should engage in this debate constructively and wisely, and tread cautiously, and make sure that, in the end, Guyana becomes the winner.

Mr. Speaker, no one in his or her right mind would doubt that this 2012 Budget was also presented under the shadows of endemic corruption, mismanagement and lack of accountability.

Decent Guyanese are burdened with a heavy heart as they are unwillingly and unwittingly saddled with the cross of corruption by officials big and small. The independent daily newspapers now read like x-rated, crime thrillers, with each day bringing a new narrative of sleaze and cronyism.

This, of course, places doubt over the credibility of the Budget, that the $193 Billion for 2012 could be in jeopardy of being washed away in the torrent of waste, mismanagement and, bureaucratic and political inertia.

The central issue before us therefore, is whether, in good conscience, on a balance of probability that things could not possibly get worst, we should vote to approve this Budget.

For many years I have been in self-denial that we could come to this sad state, where the gains of an entire generation of fighters, for what was the good cause and the values of public life, could be eroded irreversibly, and that we could plunge into the abyss.

BETRAYAL OF JAGAN LEGACY

I share the anguish and disappointment of Nadira Jagan-Brancier, as reported in Kaieteur News on Thursday, April 5, 2012, under the banner headline:

“CHEDDI, JANET JAGAN MUST BE TURNING IN THEIR GRAVES – They didn’t have big ostentatious homes that you see nowadays that govt and party officials have”.

The daughter of our late President Cheddi and Janet Jagan, lamented:

“My parents were probably the most incorruptible people you would ever find; their honesty and integrity were of very high standards, but unfortunately do not exist or I don’t see it in many of the leaders of the party and government.”

She said these leaders lack the high moral standards of the Jagans and though they are using the Jagan names, they are not living up to these standards.

Speaking of the betrayal of Jagan’s legacy of fighting for the working people, sugar workers being at the heart of the fight, she made this indictment:

“I think the party has moved away – not the party but certain elements in the party – away from these very, very important values that held the party together ….and so for me, when I look at some of the things happening, my parents must be turning in their graves – but they must be churning up in the waters of the rivers in which their ashes were sprinkled.”

These words, “my parents must be turning in their graves”, will forever haunt those who have betrayed the Jagan legacy, and will shame them forever!

But, Ms. Jagan-Brancier has a compassionate heart, and would rather that the renegades restore the non-corruptible party, and return to the humble example of Cheddi and Janet Jagan who, she reminded us, “lived a very simple life; they didn’t have big ostentatious homes that you see nowadays that government officials and party officials have, which is a very sad thing, personally.”

Mr. Speaker, the self-denial I spoke about, extended to the daily ritual of accusations that all is not well and, because I still have a few friends over there, I have been tempted to wish away many actual and perceived sins. But the accusations would not go away and they would come back, like a nightmare, in the daily headlines about one scandal after the other – over contracts for drugs, the Amaila road project, computer and books scams, secret deals, etc..

A sample of recent headlines would suffice to tell the story graphically: $300M HYDROCLAVE [WASTE DISPOSAL SYSTEM] HUGH DIFFERENCE IN COST – Kaieteur News, Sunday April 8, 2012, which states that a unit of the system commissioned at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation was quoted by the Canadian suppliers at a price of one-half what it was said to cost. We should be worried that the funds used were from the World Bank, which could add to donor suspicions and, eventually, donor fatigue over perception of waste and corruption, even if the allegations were proved untrue.

RENTAL INSTEAD OF PURCHASE OF GENERATORS, in which we were told that the state-run Guyana Power & Light (GPL) paid $1.6 billion last year alone to rent two sets when they could be purchased for $440 million each.

MARRIOT HOTEL/CASINO FIASCO, in which our people’s money, estimated at US$21 million, being held in non-accessible accounts by  NICIL, was going to partially fund the project.

IDB STILL HAS AMAILA DOUBTS ABOUT GPL: Even a project as clean as hydro-power, and likely to cost more than US$850 million, has been contaminated firstly by the Fip Motilall road scandal, and secondly, a credibility issue as to whether GPL could control efficient distribution and manage technical losses, from hydro-power.

GOVERNMENT SELLS GT&T SHARES: This reports the sale of Guyana’s 20% shares in the giant GT&T to a Chinese (Hong Kong)  company for US$30 million. No mention was made of this sale in the Budget though our coffers have been getting some $500 million annually from our GT&T share.

This raised troubling questions: Was this a good deal? Why was it not mentioned in the Budget or even, in the President’s Address to Parliament? Was there an offer of US$35 million? And, would Parliament see the original MOU?

The Hon. Finance Minister was intimately involved as Chairman of NICIL’s Board, and he should assure this Parliament that the purchase sum, estimated at G$6 billion, would be paid into the Consolidated Fund. All other sums, estimated at over G$35 Billion, held by NICIL, ought to be handed over to the Consolidated Fund.

WAGES

It is in the interest of all working people that all funds held in special accounts like NICIL and the Lottery, be paid into the Consolidated Fund, since the reasons that have been advanced year after year for wage restraint, was lack of affordability. 

During 1996, when we faced wage increase demands, the then President invited the TUC for talks and asked labour leaders to help us find the money and we would pay more to workers.

When she became President, Janet Jagan on her May 1, 1999 recounted that episode of a caring and compassionate leader:

“During January 1997, the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) had threatened to call a 40-day strike. Just two weeks before he was to fall, fatally ill, the then President, our late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, met with TUC leaders. He made the unprecedented decision that a joint labour-government technical team should examine the Government’s books to determine whether money could be found to meet further increase in salaries…..It concretized government-labour partnership, which Dr. Jagan had fought for, and always wanted.”

That moment died with Cheddi Jagan. Today, we deserve no less, and demand the inclusion of Labour on a team to find out where moneys are stashed away, and examine whether workers could be given a living wage.

PENSIONS

Mr. Speaker, we must not only bring in the NICIL, Wild Life and Lotto funds. We need to be frugal; to comb the budget for waste, and to eliminate inexplicable bloc votes such as that for the Office of the President, where all manner of people are recruited as advisors and consultants at super salaries; sinecures are doled out to old faithfuls, who enjoy double salaries along with fat perks and privileges, and propagandist-manipulators and phantom letter-writers are kept well fed.

Pruning the budget would help to get the pennies needed for workers, pensioners and the critically disadvantaged. We have to use the cutting knife on salaries for the over-bloated Ministerial bureaucracy, on travel on first-class tickets and allowances to stay at 5-star hotels. We must end the travesty of producing champions in globe-trotting whilst our pensioners go without bread.

Mr. Speaker, allow me again to quote from President Cheddi Jagan’s  December 17, 1992 Address to Parliament:

“The first time I entered the Legislative Council, I spoke on the issue of pension. It grieves me to know that there are so many Guyanese who as senior citizens get so small a pension. I think they deserve more for the contributions they had made to the society.”

Today, I say in this House: Speak Cheddi, Speak! Speak to these undeserving disciples who are unwilling to remove pensioners from extreme poverty and ensure that they enjoy their last flicker of life.

EXTREME & MODERATE POVERTY

Mr. Speaker, at the heart of any budget must be to reduce poverty. That is the social responsibility of those who govern, and of this Parliament.  The Finance Minister boasts that “the Guyanese economy is at its strongest” and we are showing “resilience and dynamism”. Yes, I agree that our economy has grown, due to many factors; that there is energy in construction and movement for the better in social services. But notwithstanding the boast of achievements, there is still acute poverty in Guyana. The question is, was it addressed adequately or at all by this Government?

Page 7 of the POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY PAPER 2011-2015, states that “the extreme poverty line is based on the normative food basket…The average cost of the food basket across the ten regions for 2006 was $7,550 per month per male adult (approximately US$1.25 per day). This average cost of the normative food basket quantifies the extreme poverty line.”

That extreme poverty line at $7,550 was for 2006. Yet six years later, in 2012, the old age pension remains at $7,550. This is criminal neglect full of dynamism! This is a national disgrace!

And to add insult to poverty, the Finance Minister promised that from May 1, 2012, old age pension will be increased by the princely sum of G$600 per month, or G$20 per day. Social assistance is below the extreme poverty line at $5,500, but a handsome hike of G$400 (or US$2) per month, will be paid from May 1, 2012. Indeed, the meager pension and social assistance is not a life-line, but a suicide belt!

By his own admission, there are 42,000 old age pensioners --- which accounts for at least 42,000 Guyanese on the extreme poverty line ( See page 67 of Budget Speech).

The POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY PAPER 2011-2015 showed that overall, 19% lived in extreme poverty in 2006 and 36% in moderate poverty, the more serious impact being felt in rural and hinterland communities.

If nothing else, this is the most glaring indictment of the failure of Government! This is a failure of policy; a failure of sound budgetary planning; a failure in redistributive justice.

Today, I submit with pain, that the numbers in extreme poverty have increased --- just look at the destitute on the street, the hordes of beggars sleeping on the pave, outside of this very Parliament, in the market places, and elsewhere. Look at children who cannot go to school because their parents cannot afford to pay bus fares. Look at the figures of desperate youths forced to petty crimes of house-breaking and choke-and-rob!

I have here, in my heart, a photo of a young woman, who is afflicted with filaria, and is mentally challenged. She is from Hopetown, West Berbice. She is a single mother of a six year-old child. She told me that she used to get $5,000 per week from the Region 5 administration. They stopped it. She was told that too many people are on social assistance. This budget does not speak to her misery nor to the death of the dreams of a young child, who cannot go to school. This story replicates itself in almost every village. Yet our economy is the strongest, and we have dynamism! What a shame!

This budget speaks not to the poverty of the people but to the poverty of conscience, the poverty of vision and to a lack of heart!

There is no better appeal than the dreams of this child to make us re-examine budgetary allocations! We need to get back to the drawing board, cut the fat, and re-work the figures!

HUMAN DELOPMENT INDEX

Mr. Speaker, real progress in any country is measured by the level of human development. On the human development Index, according to the UN Human Development Report 2011, Guyana ranks 117 out of 187 countries as a medium developed country.

Guyana falls below tiny Grenada (67), St Kitts (72) Dominica (81) and Suriname (104).

The Finance Minister said that Caribbean economy, estimated to contract by 2.2% in 2009, grew by 0.2% in 2010; 0.7% in 2011 and projected to grow by 1.7% in 2012. Guyana by comparison has economic growth higher than our Caricom partners, yet all these countries show human development indices that are higher than Guyana, and all of them have been and continue to be migration havens for Guyanese who have been and continue to escape from “Paradise”!

CAPITAL INVESTMENTS FOR AGRO-INDUSTRY

Mr. Speaker, no one doubts that there has been growth over the years. But this has not been balanced or proportionate. Whilst hundreds of billion have been spent on infrastructure, agro-industrial development has been neglected. The much vaunted Industrial Sites at Diamond, Coldingen and Lethem have stagnated. Ruimveldt, the pioneer private sector “colony”, is neglected and run-down.

Our growth must be linked to job creation. Even our much vaunted new housing projects, whilst commendable, are not linked to production centres or agricultural schemes. 

This budget has failed to provide any innovation in new agricultural schemes and industrial zones that would alleviate the problems of joblessness and lack of sustainable livelihood, and guard against the “housing revolution” becoming a bubble.

VICIOUS DEBT CYCLE

Instead, we continue to pour large sums into capital infrastructural projects, mostly with borrowed moneys. The latest is for a new international airport for air buses and jumbo jets, when we don’t even have a national carrier or own a domestic plane. I am afraid this is a Panday-like, Piarco project, the likes of which got him into all kinds of troubles, that have attracted criminal charges. The mantra seems to be: bigger, the better! But for whom?

The Finance Minister said that “we are less indebted as a nation than we were twenty years” ago. Is that true?

In 1992, when there was a change of government, the debt stood at US$2.1 Billion. In pure Guyana dollars terms, without looking at percentage of GDP or other factors, at the then prevailing rate of G$125 to 1 US$, the 1992 debt was $252,500,000,000. Today, 20 years later, and in spite of write-offs, cancellation and rescheduling, our national debt stands at US$1.2 billion which, at the current buying rate of G$207 to US$1, amounts to G$253,400,000,000 – nearly $1B more over 1992. 

No amount of statistical juggling would hide the reality that in fiscal terms, we are like a dog chasing our own tail. We are once again in the middle of the vicious debt circle.

There is no comparison between the effects, impact and miseries caused by the old debt and the new debt, amortization of which has not started to kick in. But there is no pride in boasting about our debt stock either.  And with borrowing expected to exceed $26 billion this year alone, we will set a new record high national debt ceiling ever!

A sad caricature of our debt tragedy, with our population standing some at 750,000 people, Guyana has one of the highest per capita debts in the world at roughly $333,333 – the unholy trinity. Each child born in the Jagdeo-Ramotar era would henceforth carry a debt tag at birth of $333,333!

The Minister who likes comparisons, may be interested to note that the deficit in the Consolidated Fund in 1987 was $6,558,700,000. Today, it is (before grants) $42,693,100,000, and (after grant) $26,463,800,000.

The same impetus that drove those who mismanaged the economy in the past, is driving us again today, that is, a little borrowing is not bad. So, again, this year, like the addict hooked on morphine, we continue to ease the pain of deficit financing with external borrowing in the sum of  $26 Billion, and domestic borrowing, at almost $1.5 Billion. This could be more, if we again cannot draw down the so-called “Norway Funds”

.

Debt servicing in 2012 will be $6,707,500,000. In 2010 and 2011, it was in excess of $7 Billion and $8 Billion respectively – over $20 Billion in three years!

This speaks to the mismanagement of our economy, not to its dynamism, if we have to live on borrowed moneys and, like a mendicant, we walk the globe with a begging bowl in our hands!

MISMANAGEMENT – SUGAR INDUSTRY

Mr. Speaker, there is no other sector where mismanagement is as glaring as in the sugar industry. It has been a recurrent problematic without solution.

When GAWU appeared before the Gobin Tribunal in 2009, it pointed out that “poor management of the Corporation” was responsible for fall in production. Production fell from 325,317 tonnes in 2004 to 226,267 in 2008, and 233,736 tonnes in 2009. In 2011, Guyana exported just over 211,000 tonnes of sugar.

Since then, Guysuco was running at a loss of $4 billion. GAWU had argued that had it achieved production target in 2008 of 315,000 tons, it could have netted $10.2 billion more. The tragedy is compounded as in no year since then, was the annual target achieved.

Guysuco had blamed, and continues to do so, rising costs for fuel and fertilizer. In 2007 it invested $3 billion more, yet yield per hectare fell from 72 tons in 2007 to 58 tons in 2008. Under its very nose, the Demerara estates produced 50.7% less in 2008 as compared to 2004. The Union asked at the Tribunal: “why workers should be made to suffer as a result of the abysmal performance by management?”

A Commission of Inquiry headed by Vic Oditt and included my nephew Michael Abraham Nagamootoo as GAWU representative, reported that the failure on the East Coast Demerara estates was due to sparse cane growth, weed infestation and poor drainage.

Chairman Vic Oditt declared: “There is complete disconnect between management and workers. Responsibility for the decline of this estate rests entirely with management, whose members have lost their way over the last five years. Leadership seems non-existent, morale is low and the culture is to find other persons/departments to blame.”

And, today, this Government has the audacity to come to this Parliament and ask for a further $4 Billion bailout for incompetence and mismanagement!

The sugar workers have been made the scapegoats for the failure and, when they protested, they were bludgeoned with threats to ban their union. In his address on May Day 2011 (See COMBAT ISSUE 3, VOLUME 32) GAWU President Mr. Komal Chand exposed the anti-working champions and placed workers on guard: “GAWU urges this vigilance based on our experience in recent times. Mainly, I refer to the threat last December to derecognize GAWU. We will recall that the blood of the Enmore Martyrs was spilled in their quest for the recognition of GAWU’s forerunner – the Guiana Industrial Workers Union (GIWU). “On 16^th December, 2010, in an unprecedented and outrageous act, the Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) sent to GAWU, after working hours, a letter which reads in part: The Corporation wishes to inform you that it is considering to terminate the Recognition and Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes (Agreement) dated 27^th February, 1976 that currently subsists between your Union and the Corporation”.

Chand, who is an honourable member of this House, revealed that N.K. Gopaul, Chairman of Guysuco’s Board, described it as a “tactic”. The Hon. Robert Persaud, then Minister of Agriculture, said he had nothing to do with the letter. President Jagdeo distanced himself from Guysuco’s decision. That was the classical case of the proverbial monkey: “I see not, hear not, speak not”!

Donald Ramotar, then PPP General Secretary and member of Guysuco Board, threatened me with disciplinary action and a wolf-pack of Stalinists called for my expulsion from the party. Ramotar, who was to become President, accused me with grandstanding when I urged solidarity and asked that we light a candle for sugar workers.

CRIMINALISATION OF PROCESS

Mr. Speaker, the time for a new governance mechanism is now, not tomorrow, not in the future, not in “the next 5 years”. It must not depend on whether we discover oil or harness hydro-energy.

There is need for urgency as new dangers lurk where the economy is bolstered by illicit funds via money laundering, narco-and-gun trade, fuel smuggling, piracy, and the criminalization of political processes.

The disclosures last year by Wikileaks of complicity in narco-criminal activities have hurt Guyana and its economy.

POLITICAL COURAGE

I echo the conviction of President Ramotar in his Address to this Parliament on February 10, 2012, and I really do, that “our people deserve better” and that “workers in Guyana are not left on the sidelines of development”.

With political courage, we could re-work this Budget to find, for now modest relief for the Guyanese people, and can with resolve find answers for some of the more pressing problems.

Can we reform the Value Added Tax? It is no longer VAT. It is RAT – Revenue Added Tax – the Vampire Tax. Can we lower VAT? Yes, we can!

Can we reform personal taxes, as was promised, and introduce a progressive taxation regime that would allow those who earn more to pay more, and proportional to earnings? Yes, we can!

Can we reduce the toll on the Berbice Bridge to bring ease to school children, farmers and business people? Yes, we can!

Can we enhance public transport for school children? Yes, we can!

Can we create a Flood Compensation Fund for farmers in affected areas as MMA, Black Bush Polder and the Canal Polders? Yes, we can!

Can we reduce the Travel Tax and abolish the Airport Voucher Tax to make travel less expensive, and help Guyanese access goodies from the diaspora while giving the airlines breathing space to avoid the periodic shutdown from not having capacity passenger loads? Yes, we can!

Can we reduce bloated state and government emoluments and find moneys to give public servants a double-digit minimum wage? Yes, we can!

And certainly, can we increase old age pensions and public assistance, say, to $10,000 per month? Yes, we can!

We can do these. And, yes, we can do more.

We can hasten appointment of the Procurement Commission that would over-see the work of the national and regional tender boards, and help to avoid slippages and losses through unfair contracts and corrupt deals.

We can bring the DEA to Guyana to help us fight narco-crime and money-laundering and enforce forfeiture laws that could strengthen our revenue base.

We can rigidly enforce our laws, including our Integrity legislation, to police the assets of public officials, as well as prosecute those implicated in corrupt dealings for misfeasance in public office, and surcharge them for public moneys stolen or mis-spent.

Of course, we can!

IDEOLOGICAL CONFUSION

Mr. Speaker, in all of this, we need partnership – partnership with the political parties, with Labour, Business and Civil Society.

We need certainty in our relations, not opportunism and vacillation. It is this Government that says it is Marxist-Leninist, but insists that the private sector (capitalism) is our engine of growth. This is confusion, which is played out when Government bails out public corporations and degrades, for example, genuine patriotic-nationalist, capitalist ventures like Pegasus; and promotes with state funds local cronies and foreign capitalists to build Marriot in competition with local business.

We are, sadly, ideologically, neither fish nor fowl. This confusion affects national planning, and sadly reflects in the Budget.

POLITICAL MESSAGE

Mr. Speaker, I repeat: this is indeed a Big Bang Budget – 193 Billion. But in spite of the staggering figures, the Guyanese people ask: what is there in it for us?

For many who are jobless, there is nothing. For the pensioners and critically disadvantaged, there is “something, nothing”, as Shakespeare said. The consumers get no relief from VAT, etc.. The workers not even a promise of a new national minimum wage.

The common question being asked: why support this budget? And the easier thing to do is to vote it down!

But, Mr. Speaker, the Alliance For Change does not subscribe to nihilistic politics, and does not wish to practise political blackmail or see a dead-end that would send us back to the polls.

Fresh elections now would require about $2 Billion for the Elections Commission, perhaps $2 Billion from contesting parties, and loss from business activities in another $2 billion. Snap elections would be a costly thing we can ill afford at a time when workers need WAGE not WASTE.

For us, Your Honour, the job of government is to govern, even a minority government as this. It cannot govern without money, without approved budgetary allocations. However, the power to allocate money resides with this Parliament, and we have to ensure that moneys are allocated judiciously, within our means, and in a balanced and proportionate way.

This for us is a superior political message, that we can together correct the wrongs, and do better for our people. Our first interest in to ensure that the people’s gains made over many years are not eroded, and that we maintain the allocations for the social sectors.

The AFC comes to this Parliament with an objective mind, and calls for partnership for Guyana. This is a Government budget, but this is  people’s money. The partnership is that of using fiscal prudence to make our money work for Guyana.

Outside of health, education, housing/water, we need to make cuts. We will use the scissors and not the sledgehammer. We will prune excesses and extravagance, and we will avoid waste on projects that we cannot undertake at this time. How well all of us do this, will test whether we are nationalists or just petty hustlers, unmindful of the needs of our people, and unresponsive to them.

This reality requires us to recognize that we need each other. And that we should work together. No more platitudes, no more arrogance, no more politics of disdain and “cuss-down” modes. We are in this thing together, and invite this Government to get the numbers right. If we have to fix this country, the job begins now with making this a people’s budget. Our support is assured once the Budget meets the threshold of distributive justice, balance and equity.

Long Live Guyana!

AFC lays down conditions for budget support
Written by Denis Scott Chabrol
Wednesday, 11 April 2012 01:12

http://www.demerarawaves.com/i...-budget-support.html

The Alliance For Change (AFC) on Tuesday- day one of debate on the 2012 National Budget - pledged support for the fiscal package if there are spending cuts outside the social sector.

Addressing the 65-seat National Assembly, Moses Nagamootoo said “our support is assured once the Budget meets the threshold of distributive justice, balance and equity.”

With the combined opposition of the AFC and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) holding a one-seat majority in the House, the former ruling party executive member announced that his party would be pushing for government to make the budget broadly acceptable and beneficial to Guyanese.

“We are in this thing together, and invite this Government to get the numbers right. If we have to fix this country, the job begins now with making this a people’s budget,” he said. “We will use the scissors and not the sledgehammer. We will prune excesses and extravagance, and we will avoid waste on projects that we cannot undertake at this time,” he added.

The extent of the success in that regard, he said, would test whether the parliamentarians across the divide are nationalists or just petty hustlers who are unmindful and unresponsive to the needs of Guyanese. Urging that all sides use the minority status of government to work together, he cited the need for the creation of a proper budget that would ensure that monies are allocated judiciously and in a balanced and proportionate manner.

He called for an end to platitudes, arrogance, disdainful politics and “cuss down” modes. Calling the package a Big Bang budget of GUY$193 billion, he noted that there was little or nothing for the jobless, pensioners and public servants who were not even promised a wage-hike.

He justified the AFC’s expected vote in favour of the budget, Nagamoootoo said the AFC would prefer not to press the country back to the polls because it would be too expensive. “The Alliance For Change does not subscribe to nihilistic politics, and does not wish to practise political blackmail or see a dead-end that would send us back to the polls,” said the veteran politician. He noted that fresh elections soon after last November’s poll would cost the treasury GUY$2 billion for the Elections Commission, perhaps $2 billion from contesting parties, and loss from business activities in another $2 billion. “Snap elections would be a costly thing we can ill afford at a time when workers need wage, not waste,” he said.

The AFC, he said, wants even a minority government to govern and so it must get the required cash to do so after parliament approves the spending. “This for us is a superior political message, that we can together correct the wrongs, and do better for our people. Our first interest in to ensure that the people’s gains made over many years are not eroded, and that we maintain the allocations for the social sectors,” he added.

The daughter of our late President Cheddi and Janet Jagan, lamented:

“My parents were probably the most incorruptible people you would ever find; their honesty and integrity were of very high standards, but unfortunately do not exist or I don’t see it in many of the leaders of the party and government.”

She said these leaders lack the high moral standards of the Jagans and though they are using the Jagan names, they are not living up to these standards.

Speaking of the betrayal of Jagan’s legacy of fighting for the working people, sugar workers being at the heart of the fight, she made this indictment:

“I think the party has moved away – not the party but certain elements in the party – away from these very, very important values that held the party together ….and so for me, when I look at some of the things happening, my parents must be turning in their graves – but they must be churning up in the waters of the rivers in which their ashes were sprinkled.”

These words, “my parents must be turning in their graves”, will forever haunt those who have betrayed the Jagan legacy, and will shame them forever!

Does he CUSS his Grandchildren??? Anything else yuh can tell us about his presentation in Parliament???

Did you make arrangements as yet for him to have a bed at Berbice MAD HOUSE??

Obviously Moses and the rest of the AFC/PNC cabal are being facetious, jumping on the old age pension as opportunity presents itself. Govt has an obligation to the public to balance development and social services. It is disingenuous to claim that old age pension must be raised at the expense of the nation's other pressing needs such as hospitals, schools, security, energy sector, roads and so forth.  When Moses and the other creeps were in the pPP they staan quiet, it is only when they moved to the AFC that they developed insight as political motives came into play. ahahhaha

not bar--rat pension.