Were I convinced the PPP were doing a good job I would not waste my time contesting your fiction. They ruined the industry and that is a fact. It is during their tenure, an autocratic and unaccountable one at that, the industry failed. If that was their best then they are inherently deficient lot One needs the hope that at least that they  can learn and can be rehabilitated.

stormborn aka GR you and by extension your party should be ashamed of yourselves in condemning the Governments attempt to bail out  the sugar industry

 Again, these pathetic appeal to the emotional would not win the day. The PPP failed the industry. They ran it to the ground. The are responsible for its demise and should shoulder the blame. They cannot pass the blame to others, If they now need assistance they ought to ask for it and not pretend they are saviors now going to be saviors of what they ruined. The  bail out is a bail out wrought of their failure.

The Guyana Government is acting in the best interest of the industry.

Yep....their industry at being fools is manifested in their ruining of a good thing. Note Antigua has found it necessary to source its sugar elsewhere.

Over twenty thousand working class Guyanese gain direct employment from the industry...

And they would be better served if the incompetents did not ruin their option to work and receive steady wages from a productive entity.

PPP bona fides at work. King Midas may have had gold in his touch these people only have crap. Everything they touch turn to shit.

Budget silent on NIS money impaired in CLICO

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, on Friday during the budget presentation failed to make mention of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) and the $6B impaired in the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) Guyana.

Dr Singh reported to the House that in 2011, the task of resolving the domestic chapter of the Caribbean-wide CLICO saga continued.
“I am pleased to report that following the granting of a liquidation order by the Court, some 7,744 policyholders were paid a total of $4.1B.

He said that the repayment process will continue, and the liquidator intends to garner additional funds through sale of company assets and legal actions with respect to the parent company and other regional subsidiaries.

This leaves the cash-strapped NIS, still banking on the State guarantee for the safe and timely return of its investment, even as its expenditure this year threatens to exceed its revenue.

The most recent (2010) NIS report was recently laid in the House by Dr Singh.

Its findings revealed that the Scheme’s expenditure is dangerously close to exceeding its annual revenue.

The report also underscored the institution’s heavy dependence on short term investments.

One such investment is the one impaired in CLICO (Guyana).
According to the NIS report, in 2010, the total expenditure as it relates to pension was some $9.1B, while the income was only pegged at $7.8B. Old-age benefit was responsible for some $6.7B of the payout. On the income from short term benefits, it was reported that the Scheme raked in some $2B while expending just over $1B.

While the total income for the scheme rose to $11.2B in 2010 up from 10.2B in 2009, the report revealed that total expenditure accounted for some $10.8B as against $9.6B the previous year.

The report also revealed that the administrative costs associated with running the scheme is some $1.4B.

According to the independent auditor’s report for NIS, prepared by TSD Lal & Co. Chartered Accountants, “the actuaries reported several matters of concern, among which were that annual expenditure is projected to exceed the year’s contribution income beginning in 2014 and reserves are expected to be exhausted in 2022…The actuaries made certain recommendations to ensure the future viability of the Scheme, but so far these have not been fully implemented.”

The independent auditors also said that investments of $28.8 billion in the statement of financial position include an amount of $5.748 billion for CLICO Life and General Insurance Company Ltd.

CLICO Life and General Insurance Company Ltd., was put under judicial management in 2009.

“Due to uncertainties regarding the future of CLICO Life and General Insurance Company Ltd and its ability to honour its debts when due, a unanimous Parliamentary Resolution was passed guaranteeing State support for the recovery of this investment.”

An independent expert had said that the nation’s coffers will soon be affected adversely by the investment of NIS in CLICO (Guyana).

According to the source, based on the projections of the figures as they relate to expenditure and revenue the latter will soon be less than the required expenditure and the $6B investment in CLICO is impaired and will not be available for use at any time in the near future.

The national coffers will be affected, given that at anytime NIS is unable to make its payments, the company by law has to move to the National Assembly seeking monies to be approved from the Consolidated Fund.
It was pointed out that in recent years, expenditure and revenue was almost at break even and expenditure was projected to increase.

Over the years the revenue collected by NIS has remained stagnant while the expenditure grew, so should the monies not be recovered from CLICO (Guyana) soon, then it would be unavoidable for NIS to not petition for money from the coffers.

The Bank of Guyana has been appointed liquidator and is seeking to increase the liability of the failed insurance company by raising more money from activities such as the sale of the company’s assets as well as from taking legal action against BOSAI, CLICO (Bahamas) and Caribbean Resources Limited.

The sale of assets at book value should have realized some $2.7B but the budget was also silent on the level of cash acquired from the sale of assets thus far.

They and their cronies get rich and the People get poor....talk about crooks and and their spoils!

NIS on the Ropes

Last week, Secretary to the Cabinet, Dr. Roger Luncheon, announced that the NIS as it presently stands would become unviable unless itsimultaneously increased its revenues while ‘controlling” expenditures. If he were the chairman of a private enterprise corporation, we would have to say that he was presiding over an entity that was either already eating into its reserves or was soon to do so. Not a healthy position to be in any circumstance.

As one of the measures to increase revenues, Dr Luncheon mentioned the possibility of increasing the contributory rate (split between the employer and the employee) from the present 13%. He admitted, however, that this would simultaneously reduce the take home income of employees and the profitability of businesses. To reduce expenditure, the NIS chairman also mentioned that another intervention could be to raise the age at which pensions can be acquired: from the present 60 years to “65 or even 67 years”.

Coming just before the budget that was billed as a ‘people’s budget’, if these measures are implemented, it will be a terrible blow to the older and most vulnerable members of our society. Right now, the two largest blocs of workers – public service workers and sugar workers – retire around 55 years: the former by fiat and the latter because of their broken bodies. After making their contributions for over thirty years in some instances, what are they to survive on between 55 and 67? The life expectancy at birth in now 69 years, so we guess Dr Luncheon figures that the NIS might be able to get by, by paying pensions to qualified pensioners for two years.

But what makes Dr Luncheon’s statements even more outrageous is that more than four years ago, a NIS Reform Committee submitted a report to him which analysed the status of the scheme and made a raft of recommendations for addressing the identified problems. The Committee’s report stated bluntly that “in about five years (i.e. by 2012) expenditure would begin to exceed total income”. Prophetic? As for Dr Luncheon’s blithe assertion that the NIS has reserves of $30billion, the report predicted, “in 2013 the reserves would begin decreasing and be depleted by 2022.”

The question is, what has Dr. Luncheon and his Board been doing since 2007?
Let us take the income of the NIS which comes from contributions and investments. The Committee made several recommendations for increasing contributions – but not by raising the contribution rate. This is the quick and dirty method which will place the burden squarely on the backs of the workers that are in the organised sector. Have at least half of the self-employed been brought into the NIS system? If not, why has the goal not been reached? Has the NIS put in place measures to ensure that all licenced contractors are monitored to make sure their contributions are made? What about the legions in the interior mining gold? What about taxi drivers?

Then there are the investments. Is there an Investment Management Committee as recommended? Has the investment portfolio been diversified away in the manner recommended to deliver the recommended rate of return? Has Dr Luncheon been delivering regular reports in this area?

Dr Luncheon mentioned that the NIS has recently acquired the CLICO building. Has this investment been delivering a positive cash flow? Then, of course, there is the $5.7 billion that the NIS invested in CLICO – are we going to be recovering this amount? Have the recommendations in the financial reporting systems (both substantively and in its computerisation) been implemented? Have the auditing services been put up for tender on a ‘rotating basis”?

In our estimation, the NIS is too important an institution to be left on ‘auto pilot’ as it appears to be right now. Before going forward, we demand that Dr Luncheon gives a report of actions taken to implement the NIS Reform report of 2007. The government cannot give with the right hand (Dr Singh) and then take a larger portion with the left hand (Dr Luncheon).

One of the problems facing skeldon has to do with production. Gerhard, Kissoon and the others are inciting sugar workers to strike for every lil thing. This in turn affects production and they then blame the PPP for the inefficiencies 

Let ramsammy say there is a plan. They refuse subsidy to lindeners on grounds freebies are a thing of the past. One cannot throw good after bad. Merely insisting this will "save workers job" is insubstantial.

They had 20 years to do that but ran the industry to the ground. Let them stand as men not the crooks hiding behind a shield of "defending workers" and say what the hell they will do and what are the checks and balances in place.

Cheddi and Janet Jagan must be turning in their graves – says daughter at memorial

Ms Jagan-Brancier speaking to the audience

“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.”
The comments came from the daughter of the late Guyanese leaders Dr Cheddi Jagan and Mrs Janet Jagan. She said that the current leaders of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and government lack “the very, very, very high moral standards” which her parents embodied when they were alive.
Mrs Nadira Jagan-Brancier scolded the party for putting out platforms using her parents’ name— particularly her father’s— and not living up really and truly to what her parents had stood for. “It is not enough to go out there and make lovely speeches about who my parents were, what they did and the legacy that we’re carrying on”.
She said that her parents fought for sugar workers, the poor and down-trodden in Guyana and in the world. “That’s who they stood for, and again, I think the party has moved away— not the party but certain elements in the party— from these very, very important values that held the party together and what makes the PPP what it is 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)”.
She said that if the PPP is saying that it is following Cheddi Jagan and Janet Jagan as a living guide, “the only way you can follow them is to return to basics, return to who this party is which is the working- class party, obviously you have to support other people, but the base of this party is a working- class party, get back to being a non- corruptible party, so people can’t point a finger and say ‘there is so much corruption, why should we worry?”
The daughter of the late leaders then pleaded with the PPP/C leaders and members to get back to the high and moral values. “If the leaders don’t show the moral values then people won’t do it, and you’re children won’t grow up with moral values. And if your families don’t show moral values, then society as a whole will lose that”.
“Their lives were involved in politics so their time for me and my brother was very limited…They weren’t there the amount of hours that most people would have their parents around, but the times that they were, it was what they called quality time, not quantity…so the times they spent with us— memories that I will have for the rest of my life”.
She noted that her parents were very normal, simple, and humble people and a “very, very loving couple”. She recalled sitting down for breakfast in the mornings around the family table and listening to the news from Guyana or the BBC “and you weren’t allowed to talk”.
She noted that they lived very simple lives and told the gathering that the house in which her parents once lived, is now open to the public. “The house is there and I really encourage people to use the opportunity to go in Bel Air and see the house where they lived…They 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”.
Ms Jagan- Brancier also encouraged persons to visit the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre in Kingston. “This was when my father was Premier from 1961 to 1964”.
“Most people think of my mom as only writing for the Mirror and other political things; my mom wrote a lot of children stories— I hope that people who have children would know this. She was also a poet and wrote some beautiful poems.”
Mrs Jagan’s prison diary, she said, are all important documents that Mrs Jagan-Brancier urged persons to read. The Cheddi Jagan website is also another feature that she urged the public to access information www.jagan.org “and on this website, you will find information”.

You are a liar.

Do you put sugar in your tea, Sir?

 Fine tea stands on its own.

Oh indeed, I agree...smh

You look like Randy.

This is a cross dresser so the likeness is spot on

When ever the goons of the AFC runs of of criticisms they usually makes idiots of themselves. pity on their souls

Posters as these will not save your crooked asses or hide your thievery. You are being measured and found wanting. Tell us what you want to do with the money is all that is being asked.

That may be criticism to you but accountability to the people for the first time. After all you ruined the industry by your corrupt practices.

Cane cutters are paid a 1000 times less for their toil while the fat cats sit on the sugar board and leech off their sweat.