The sanctions have begun… APNU applauds EU for withholding budgetary support

- urges embassies to follow suit with other sanctions
Opposition Leader, David Granger, along with his Shadow Minister of Finance, Carl Greenidge, is elated to know that the government is finally receiving international sanctions for having prorogued the Parliament.
The European Union (EU) recently announced that it has temporarily put on hold its two latest partial payments — EURO $28.9M for Guyana’s sugar sector and EURO $14.8M for sea defences– until all eligibility criteria, including budget oversight, are “satisfactorily” addressed.
The EU made clear that it has a long standing commitment to support development and poverty reduction in Guyana.  Last year, it said that EURO $34 million was allocated to Guyana under the 11th European Development Fund. EU aid is channeled through different modalities. Budget support is one of them and Guyana is receiving the payments under this model.
Granger said Friday afternoon that the EU has taken the correct course of action. He asserted that it is a travesty that the Parliament has been prorogued and that there is no oversight of taxpayers’ dollars.
The politician reiterated that the European Union is quite in order. He added that it is pellucid to A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) that the election campaign of the government is being conducted in a manner that indicates that massive expenditure has been used to buy votes. There is the donation of huge cash grants to certain villages in the hinterland. He said that what is also clear is that it was obviously timed to have an impact on the PPP election campaign.
APNU’s Shadow Minister of Finance, Carl Greenidge, also applauded the EU for taking this action. Greenidge said that in the case of the Union, it is not the first time that it has acted in such a manner with members of the Commonwealth Charter.
He emphasized that countries of the Charter are expected to adhere to the principles of democracy and to ensure that human rights are not infringed upon. He reminded that the Union had put the proverbial “foot down” before when countries failed to observe those lines of practice.
The former Finance Minster said, too, that he is pleased to know that those clauses that countries are asked to uphold was part of an initiative some years ago which he was also instrumental in drafting.
“The People’s Progressive Party / Civic cannot be allowed to be going to the international stage hiding behind a smokescreen called democracy when the truth is that it is just a corrupt dictatorship that has put this country through enough suffering.
“Embassies need to follow suit now. For too long they have been quiet; they too have a moral responsibility to ensure that democracy is what is really supported and promoted,” Greenidge concluded.
On the other hand, the government is not too pleased with the action taken by the EU. Yesterday, it sought to set the record straight that Guyana has indeed met all the requirements and that the EU has not honoured the agreement.
The Government made available to the media, the correspondence it had with the Union, dated September 8, 2014. It said that the document indicates clearly that Guyana had met the eligibility criteria required to qualify for disbursements totaling EURO 25,858,025, and that the same Delegation had recommended disbursement of this sum to the EU Budget Support Steering Committee in Brussels which was due to meet on September 17, 2014.
Government nevertheless said that the EU might now wish to correct the misinformation that Guyana did not satisfy certain criteria and “explain to the people of Guyana what exactly accounts for the failure to disburse the sums since September 8, 2014, especially bearing in mind that Parliament was not prorogued until November 10, 2014.”
The current row over who is really dishonouring the agreement, started when UK High Commissioner Andrew Ayre said that Guyana may be facing possible sanctions for operating without a Parliament.
He had reportedly said as well that UK taxpayers would more than likely object to its government providing budgetary support to a country functioning without any means of parliamentary scrutiny.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, was apparently offended by this. He had accused the EU and the British High Commissioner of conspiring to dishonour the longstanding budgetary support agreement between the EU and the Government of Guyana.
Luncheon also hinted that the EU had reneged on an agreement with Guyana on budgetary support.
He even deemed Ayre’s comments in relation to withholding development aid as “most dastardly”. He said that Government eagerly waits to see the departure of the “pariah.”
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh at his last press conference had subsequently challenged the Union to say why it is holding back the payments approved.
He insisted then, and even now, that Guyana had met its obligations regarding the budgetary support payments due to it by the EU. He said that this is confirmed in a written agreement between the two which he subsequently released to the media on Friday.
A large percentage of the EU funds received over the years would go to the sugar industry, but Guyana has been failing to meet all of the indicators to secure the funding. The Finance Minister said that almost all of the indicators were achieved and based on those, Guyana qualified for the disbursement of EURO $25M.
He had said, too, that Guyana has an ongoing engagement with the Union and it never presented any “credible reasons” why Government has not received the monies to date.
He later qualified the actual reasons given to be “spurious”.
The Finance Minister had also said that the then Head of the EU delegation in Guyana, Robert Kopecký, has written to the body in relation to the payment being made.
To date, Guyana has received over $31B since the execution of the Guyana National Action Plan (GNAP) in 2006 on Accompanying Measures for Sugar Protocol Countries alone. But the ailing sugar industry has been unable to meet all of the indicators, thereby making it incapable of qualifying for full funding under the GNAP.
A report at the 51st meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) disclosed that Guyana only received 70 percent of funds allotted from the accompanying measures.