I REFER to Mr. Aubrey Norton’s missive in the Sunday Edition of Stabroek News (April 08, 2012; page 6). Mr. Norton accuses the government of “discriminatory tactics” and “political favoritism”. However, he fails to take a look in the mirror. Mr. Norton claims that the current administration shows favour to the regions it controls but fails to recognise that the PPP/C has sought to increase the share of the budgetary allocations to even the opposition-controlled regions from the meagre amounts that were disbursed under the PNC government. Under Mr. Norton’s party’s control in 1990, the same Regions 4, 7, 8 and 10 had less of a share of the regional allocation than they do now!
In 1990, Regions 4, 7, 8 and 10 had 7.4%, 2.4%, 0.6% and 7.4% of the regional expenditure respectively. The allocations for those same regions have increased to 8.0%, 5.2%, 5.9% and 9.1% respectively in the proposed 2012 budget presented by the Honourable Minister of Finance and Mr. Norton claims that the current government is trying to paint a picture of discrimination? How is that so? If the rest of us were to use the same logic that Mr. Norton did, one would stand to think, based on the numbers, that the PNC were even more discriminatory than the PPP/C as they allocated a smaller share of the pie to the regions in highlight when they were in power.
Based on what I have read, the opposition is trying to pluck arguments from thin air and confuse and instigate the public. I say this because Mr. Norton conveniently omits in his letter that the PPP/C government has initiated a US$12M project in Linden to rehabilitate the water supply system by constructing two new water treatment plants and rehabilitating the distribution network and writes to the public that the PPP/C government is not creating jobs and “depriving the people of Linden of  earning capacity”?
I’d like to make one final point. The economy of our beautiful country is driven by its large agriculture sector – this is a fact. Mr. Norton forgets to mention that the regions with the higher capital allocation are largely agricultural regions and require significant investments to support our agriculture sector so that the thousands of agriculture workers can continue to make a meaningful living. Is our agriculture sector so meaningless in Mr. Norton’s eyes that he cares not about the stigma he is trying to impart on those regions?
The figures should speak for themselves because the PNC’s allocation to Region 10 was four times higher than what they allocated to an important agriculural region such as Region 6. When one speaks of discrimination, then one should look at those facts Mr. Norton.
Mr. Editor, the PNC is shamelessly trying to bamboozle your readers. Numbers do not lie – the PPP/C is far from discriminatory in the regional allocations. There is a reason for everything and obviously Mr. Norton has not done his homework thoroughly.