Govt meets with Region Six residents to explain budget cuts

Region Six Chairman David Armogan said the Gy$ 20 billion that the combined opposition, the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) “butchered” from the 2012 National Budget will have a direct impact on the region.

Speaking at a recent meeting with residents of East Canje, Armogan said students are among those who will be affected, notably those who are preparing to sit the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC).

“You know NCN since last year has been running a channel called the Learning Channel, in which your children can look at that and learn Mathematics, English, and social studies and so on… well, the cut in the budget which now only gives NCN one dollar will definitely result in those programmes being thrown out.”

The regional chairman said that apart from those programmes, others will also be affected. “Those of you who are accustomed to watching boxing, cricket, and other sports on NCN will have to suffer because of the scissors of Ramjattan and Granger,” he told the residents, who from all appearances were disgusted by the opposition’s behaviour.

Sadly, he said, some staff will have to be sent home, many of them Berbicians, and more so, residents of East Canje.

“GINA too they have chopped to one dollar to ensure that whatever is happening in the government, nobody knows about it.” He said the opposition parties have been calling for more information to be given to the public on how government spends its money, but shamefully, they are cutting the information off to the public.

The regional chairman said opposition leaders seem bent on stymieing development, and in a stroke of hypocrisy, they are accusing the government of not doing enough.

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh explained that the government has embarked on a series of meetings to keep citizens fully informed of recent political developments.

The intentions of the opposition began to manifest at the commencement of the 10th Parliament. First the National Assembly was tasked with selecting a Speaker of the House. Dr Singh said when the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/ C) had the majority; the opposition was given the deputy speaker post, a tradition AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan collaborated with the APNU to upturn.

The finance minister noted that the first choice for the opposition was Moses Nagamootoo, but the APNU said that they could not trust him, and as a result, Raphael Trotman, a former People’s National Congress (PNC) representative was nominated for Speaker of the House. He also explained that the Deputy Speaker Debra Baker is also from the PNC-led APNU.

“And so we have a situation where the party with the largest number of seats does not have the Speaker or the deputy speaker post.”

Dr Singh said though the PPP/ C secured 49 per cent of the votes at the last elections, and should have been given five seats on the Committee of Selection, with four going to the APNU and one to the AFC, the two parties partnered to ensure this did not happen.

“However, the joint opposition used their majority in the House and reduced the number of seats on the committee to nine, resulting in the PPP having four, APNU four and AFC one seat.” He said when the budget was taken to Parliament, government was aware of the nature of the APNU and the AFC, but expected that the opposition would have assessed the budget on merit and be positive, reasonable and at least sensible.

“But lo and behold, instead of being sensible, they went cutting the budget for their own political objectives,” he noted.

One of the more critical cuts in the budget is the Gy$ 1 billion slashed from the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) subsidy.

“Government spends Gy$ 2.9 billion subsidising electricity in Linden and we have proposed to have the residents in Linden start paying for electricity like you are. The opposition says no… don’t let them pay, but they have cut Gy$ 1 billion from GPL subsidy, and so what they want is for you to have to pay even higher electricity rates while Linden gets the same electricity free,” Dr Singh explained.

He added that from all appearances, the joint opposition do not seem to care about the people of Guyana.

Effect of GPL subsidy cut

GPL Chief Executive Officer Bharat Dindyal explained that between 78 per cent and 81 per cent of the company’s revenue continues to be used to meet its seemingly increasing fuel bill each year. Dindyal said that the company may be in dire need of the Gy$ 1 billion that was chopped from the subvention sooner rather than later, if the situation continues along this trend. He opined that the members in the opposition benches did not appear as they had fully understood for what the monies were given to GPL.

He explained that there is no merit in the arguments put forward by some APNU and AFC parliamentarians that the funds were to be used to fund GPL’s loss reduction programme.

He also denied the assertions that government was offering either a “subvention or bail-out” to the GPL.

He stressed that the company had the ability to stand on its own feet, especially given the terms and conditions of its licences.

“If GPL continues to be denied the monies it need… and if fuel prices continue on the current trajectory and government still embraces the position that they do not want to see another tariff increase then there are only two options” – load shedding or going back to Parliament.