– urges closer embrace of facts rather than distortion
FINANCE Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh Thursday night flayed the Opposition, through Member of Parliament Carl Greenidge from A Partnership for Unity, on the issue of accountability, as he urged them to a closer embrace of facts rather than distortion, when he rose to rebut a presentation made by the former PNC Finance Minister. Dr. Singh said that no person could disagree with an objective to work towards the continued development of Guyana, advance the progress towards fighting poverty and improve the lives of all citizens.
The Finance Minister said he had hoped that the former Finance Minister would have indicated some semblance of magnanimity around these objectives that no right-minded Guyanese would disagree with.
Instead, Dr. Singh posited that Mr. Greenidge regaled the National Assembly with irrelevances, innuendos, diversions, deviations from objectivity and truth, a very healthy dose of biased and prejudiced analysis and accounts, and an overdose of distortions. Dr. Singh then proceeded to correct those distortions.
Pointing to Greenidge’s reference to an Inter American Development Bank (IDB)/International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on the stagnation of the Guyanese economy, Dr. Singh expressed the hope that Greenidge was not referring to reports about stagnation during his own (Greenidge’s) tenure.
Dr. Singh noted that Guyana has been singled out for its outstanding economic performance in recent years.
He stated that the IMF had commended Guyana for the robustness of its economy, while Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, described Guyana as the ‘Shining Star of the Caribbean”.
He added that recent reports from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) clearly state that Guyana is one of the principal drivers of growth in the Caribbean.
The regional international outlook of the IMF identifies Guyana among the resource exporting countries of the Caribbean, and by extension, the most outstanding economic performer of recent years, Dr. Singh added.
Presenting a current picture of economic development cannot be done from past reports; and during recent presentations in the House, Greenidge made attempts to correct his own track record on accountability, the Finance Minister said.
“…and conveniently made that claim that as champion of accountability, he had been tabling accounts; but conveniently omitted to tell this House that he was referring to audited accounts produced in relation to the fiscal years during which his predecessors were in office,” Dr. Singh declared.
He added that Greenidge claimed as his own achievement the tabling of audited accounts that dates back to before he assumed office.
The indisputable fact of the matter, pointed out the Finance Minister, is that Greenidge introduced and belaboured the issue of accountability, even though the last set of accounts produced and tabled in the National Assembly prior to 1992, related to 1981, just a year and a half before Greenidge assumed office. These accounts were tabled by him in 1987, while he had assumed office in 1983. No audited accounts were produced from then to 1992.
Dr. Singh stated emphatically that the former Finance Minister had never come to explain to the National Assembly and the people of Guyana, why he failed to produce audited accounts during his tenure.
“He has the audacity to come to this House and lecture us on accountability. He does not have the authority to lecture this Government on accountability,” Dr. Singh declared.