THE Alliance for Change (AFC) has vowed to vote against budgetary allocations to the Guyana Information Agency (GINA), even if it means “shutting the whole thing down.” AFC’s Moses Nagamootoo has said that the idea of $130M going to GINA is inexplicable when government has said that it cannot give Guyanese more than $20 a day on their pensions.

“When you are faced with a government that says that ‘we cannot afford to pay more in pension, we cannot afford to pay more in social assistance’, and then proposing this money for GINA, we say that our conscience is clear: we will vote against GINA, even if it means shutting the whole thing down,” Nagamootoo said.
He made this vow during a media briefing the AFC had called at the Sidewalk Café on Middle Street to address some of the concerns and issues regarding the 2012 Budget, and consideration of the Estimates, which began yesterday.
Nagamootoo also said that the AFC intends to deal with the Guyana Chronicle and the National Communications Network (NCN), both of which slander the opposition every day in “attack mode”, and does not give a right to reply.
He argued that in a democracy, the opposition is part of the government, and the AFC will demand to be respected as part of the government.
“Since people voted us into Parliament, we have a right, as well as the governing party, to explain to people what we are doing with the confidence they vested in us, and with their mandate.
“And so, if we have no access to NCN and to the Chronicle — that is being used to bludgeon, and defame and destroy people’s character every day — we will have to deal with them. Because the mandate of the people is that, if they are State media, they should be at the service of all the people.”
He stressed that the AFC would be inflexible in its position that taxpayers’ money should not be going into subventions to GINA and NCN.