WATER BILL, LIGHT BILL AND APNU’s BILL

February 3, 2013, By chris, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) recently piloted a Bill through the National Assembly that it said was intended to cap some of the benefits payable to former Presidents.

That Bill should never have been tabled or entertained. It flies in the face of parliamentary conventions which dictate that Members’ Bills should only be confined to non-controversial matters or to moral questions. To do otherwise would be to encroach on the government’s right to decide on official government policy and this would violate the separation of powers, which is the pedestal upon which parliamentary democracy is mounted.

The opposition parties, of course, seem to have little appetite for such conventions. They have become quite swell-headed by the one-seat parliamentary majority that they collectively hold, not recognizing that this slim majority does not arrogate to them the power to make official policy through passage of legislation which does emanate from or enjoy the support of government.

It is now likely that this Bill will be the subject of yet another constitutional challenge. The Courts will no doubt be asked to invalidate this legislation, not by virtue of the violation of any specific provision of the constitution, but because it dismantles the very foundation upon which the constitution is constructed – the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive arms of the State.

The government has indicated that the Bill capping the benefits of former Presidents was highly flawed. One of these flaws, it was contended, had to do with the legislative drafting of the Bill. It was said that the Bill did not specify whether the allowances that were to be paid to the beneficiaries for the payment of utilities were payable per month, per day, per week or per year. The allowance for utilities was set at $5,000 but according to the government, it was not stated whether it is $5,000 per month or per week.

Surely, it would be disgraceful and dishonourable for parliament to be asking a former President to be only given $5,000 per month to pay for his utilities. If indeed it was the intention of the opposition to reduce the benefit payable to the former President for electricity and water to $5,000, this surely is petty and unbecoming.

Such a provision would place former presidents in a humiliating position. Would APNU have done that to Messrs. Hoyte and Burnham?

The fact that parliamentarians themselves receive a piteous sum does not justify granting such a meagre sum to a former President. The opposition should make a case for higher allowances for themselves, because by the same logic that informs only granting $5,000 per month to a former President for utilities, it would mean that they are saying that $5,000 per month is sufficient to pay water bills and electricity for the average worker.

Surely, the opposition cannot be so divorced from reality as to expect the measly sum of $5,000 to pay for water and electricity each month for the average worker. The average water tariff for most consumers is about $2,000 per month and the average electricity bill is about $ 6,000 per month for a working class family. So why then propose the sum of $5,000, unless of course, it is $5,000 per day for a former President, which would then make it too extravagant.

Even the most rabid of government-haters know that the sum of $5,000 per month is ridiculous. The opposition will lose face because of this Bill.

While, of course, it is doing these ridiculous things, the government is ingratiating itself with the working class by announcing that it will be establishing a minimum wage.

The government must, however, avoid the same mistake that it is accusing the opposition of. The government should specify whether the minimum wage is monthly, weekly or hourly.

If a monthly or weekly minimum wage is set, the government should specify how many hours someone would be expected to work to qualify for the minimum wage.

Unless this is done, problems will arise such as the one involving cleaners for some schools who are demanding to be paid a minimum wage. At present it is reported that some of them are working for a mere $17,000 per month which is below what other low income workers are earning. There is at present no national minimum wage, but there are minimum wages for selected categories of workers.

Most of these cleaners do not work forty hours per week. Most of them only work for two to three hours per day and therefore do not work the required 160 hours per month. These cleaners are therefore not required to work a full working day and thus should be paid an hourly rate rather than at a monthly rate.

Establishing an hourly minimum wage will be fair to all concerned, especially for security guards, many of whom are earning per hour less than it would take to buy a small bottle of Coca-Cola.

It is hoped that when the minimum wages are set that they would not only be realistic and fair, but there would eventually be a plan for these wages to converge with what the unions have long been demanding: a living wage. Guyana should aim at a progressive convergence between a national minimum wage and a national living wage.

That minimum wage should for the present allow the small man to pay his monthly electricity and water, something that right now even a former President may not be able to afford if the opposition parties have their way.