The Observer…

Budget preparation is Govt’s mandate

PREPARING a national budget is a massive undertaking, but the essence of budgets 2012 and 2013 was lost in the farcical, stage-managed “debate” that transpired.The budgets of the two preceding years were simply following patterns of progress documented in the developmental agenda of the PPP/C administration – an agenda which commenced in 1993, whereby 2012 and 2013 marked 19 years of development hence. The 2012, 2013, and soon the 2014 budgets are contextualized within that scope of consideration.
Although development of a nation is always a work in perpetual progress, (albeit with some administrations this is a converse situation, where retrogression transpires instead), it is the general perception that there is an expectation that every budget that the PPP/C administration presents should contain a solution to every single economic, social, political and every other problem extant in Guyana. However, no budget in the world can achieve that phenomenon.
Every successive budget this Government presents is only one page of a programme with which Government projects to transform the economic, social and physical landscape of Guyana. It is intended to make transformational changes in the lives and livelihoods of the Guyanese people. This has always been stated by the PPP leadership as being the ultimate aim of the PPP/C’s developmental plan – work that has been in progress over the almost two decades of PPP/C administration’s stewardship of the nation.
The progress that the government has made has been monumental, and for there to be an appreciation of the magnitude of this progress, then it is necessary to re-visit the state of the country when the PPP/C acceded to the highest administrative office in the land in October of 1992, which normally evokes much adverse reaction from the Opposition collective.
Unless we examine from where the current administration started more than 19 years ago, the immense progress and transformational changes that the PPP/C government has wrought in this country cannot be fully appreciated.
During debate of Budget 2012, Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall alluded to three budget speeches delivered in the National Assembly by former Finance Minister in the PNC administration, Carl Greenidge.
The AG declared, “What I found, when I read them (Greenidge’s budget speeches) it was like a death announcement – one pronouncement after another; the death of economic growth, the death of so many industries; every single sector declined in performance. At the end of it the economy was bankrupt…”

This abysmal performance in governance by the former administration is recorded for all posterity.
Nandlall reiterated that Guyana’s economy was bankrupt when the PPP/C inherited it, with no foreign reserves. Continuing to refer to Greenidge’s budget speeches, Nandlall declared: “…We had several bouts of whopping devaluations – 10 to one; 33 to one; from 33 to one to 100 and one to one…”.
Responding to his own query on the expanse of the devaluation, Nandlall enumerated a few, among which were constant declines of GDP, an unserviceable debt burden on the nation, serious balance of payment deficiencies, which he said Greendige could not explain and frankly referred to as an “economic disequilibrium”.
The infrastructure, recalled Nandlall, was “in complete tatters” and because of vociferous contentions from Opposition benches, Nandlall was constrained to indicate the passages in Greenidge’s budget speeches of 1990, 1991, and 1992 from where he was quoting.
Explaining that he had marked the relevant passages, Nandlall began to read directly from Greenidge’s budget speeches: “The fiscal imbalance, which has been of major concern and the pre-occupation of an economic policy has now been narrowed…”; but he was not allowed to continue due to constant interruptions and loud protests from the opposition benches.
However, Nandlall maintained that “…these documents pronounced the economic death of Guyana”, averring that the only things that were on the rise under PNC rule were inflation and the underground economy. And these, he related, were during the much touted economic recovery under Hoyte’s leadership.
Conversely, he stressed, under the stewardship of the PPP/C administration the economy has somersaulted to achieving a strong macro-economic infrastructure; the highest ever foreign reserves; a reduction of interest rates from 32.5% to 4.5%; economic growth that was in the negative prior to 1992 is now consistently at an average of 4.4%, with 5.4% growth recorded in 2011; which he noted had been achieved by Guyana in an adverse global and regional economic environment.
Nandlall continued to adumbrate the achievements of successive PPP/C administrations since 1992: “We have a strong balance-of-payment position, and our economy is at its strongest and largest ever; and of course I would not go into the government’s plethora of social programmes which are benefiting the people countrywide…”
He nevertheless noted that, among other social programmes, all of them having great positive impacts on the lives of the Guyanese people, in excess of 100,000 persons have been housed through the Government’s housing programme, with 6,500 more projected to similarly benefit in 2012, pointing out that the PNC did not have a housing policy, not even a housing ministry.
He highlighted the fact that, although the lands had always been there, Guyanese people lived in much squalor under difficult circumstances until the PPP/C government began transforming cow pastures, cane fields, rice fields and other abandoned areas into affordable housing schemes that enabled persons who never had a hope of owning their own homes to live under their own roofs, with all the implications of wealth generation and wealth-creation possibilities.
Nandlall emphasised: “We had to build the land up…make roads…dig drains…install water…electricity, and then we allocated the land, ensuring that the people received their transports and titles.”
Continuing, he reminded the House: “…and then we went to the commercial banks and negotiated low-interest loan programmes – a complete loan package unparalleled in any other part of the world.”
In response to the Opposition’s call for the NICIL report to be made public, Nandlall stated: “The NICIL Report, detailing every single transaction by that entity in relation to properties has been made public at a function at the Pegasus Hotel, [but] it is not my problem if they [opposition] do not read. The prices were quoted, the names of the persons who bid for those properties were listed; it is not my problem if you don’t read.”
Nandlall declared: “…when (APNU co-leader) Rupert Roopnaraine speaks about the constitution and governance, he must understand the Herculean task that we had to undertake to re-shape (Guyana into) what we have now.”
Yet stakeholders, including the private sector – a sector that has benefited more than most from this Government’s policies and programmes, seem to have forgotten the history of this country, and the role those clamouring for inputs into PPP/C Government budgets played in the destruction of this nation and the downward spiral of Guyana’s economy to subterranean levels.
The PPP/C is also being forced to concede to those forces, including foreign governments that once colluded with the former PNC regime to destroy this country, their mandate of budget preparation, instead of conceding that the PPP/C’s successive Government’s post- 1992 budgets and astute and prudent management of the economy is the only factor that has sustained and propelled Guyana’s constant economic growth and social development, which prompted Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves to remark that “Guyana is the only shining star of the Caribbean.”
However, the PPP has always believed in inclusivity, and has always tried for consensual positions with genuine partners who are sincerely committed to the welfare of the Guyanese people; thus, there has been the establishment of many institutions and committees (including those in Parliament), and other bodies to involve stakeholders in the affairs of the state; thus successive national budgets have always had inputs from key stakeholders in the nation.
The Government has invited the relevant Opposition representatives to confer on Budget 2014, and one hopes that they will avail themselves of the opportunity to make a genuine contribution to nation-building.
However, those who are merely paying lip service to national welfare and the fence-sitters who are merely profit and power motivated, could very well force compromises from the Government that could derail the PPP/C’s developmental agenda, as has been happening post 2011 elections.
Then those stakeholders and the foreign interlopers who have always held successive PPP governments to ransom, will be solely accountable to the Guyanese nation for forcing the Government to compromise its primary mandate – preparation of the national budget, which is solely the constitutional responsibility and right of the legally elected Government.

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