AFC proposes judicious cuts to trim fat from the budget
–wants Public Service Commission to handle employment
THE Alliance For Change (AFC) says that its proposals for budget cuts within certain government ministries is intended to eliminate the hiring of contract workers with super salaries and super allowances  within the Public Service. “In our proposals for budget cuts, we are going after the contract workers in the higher brackets; the ones who are obvious recipients, not only of duty contracts and sweetheart deals, but of sinecures,” AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan said.
Both he and Moses Nagamootoo denied that the AFC was targeting ordinary workers in the ministries in their budget cut proposals.
The AFC leaders said that for anyone to suggest that was the AFC’s intent is an act of mischief, since neither the AFC nor any of its Members of Parliament would do anything to oppress the ordinary worker.
“We don’t want to cut the ordinary workers; we want them to be employed. What we want is for the contract workers to go back into the regular Public Service, which has been degutted of its prominence and importance,” Nagamootoo declared.
Ramjattan also said that the AFC would not be intransigent or willy-nilly in its approach towards the cuts. “We will listen to government’s explanations as to why the cuts are not necessary, and if explanations are reasonable, we will withdraw the particular proposal,” he said.
He also said the AFC hopes that budgetary cuts on employment of contract workers with super salaries, as well as cuts in other areas, would help the AFC to meet some of its objectives for the poor and disadvantaged in the 2012 Budget.
He said that those objectives included a monthly $10,000 old age pension; public assistance of $7,500 per month; a reduction of Vat by 2% this year, and another 2% in 2013; a reduction of the monthly personal income tax chargeable from 33 1/3 % to 30%; immediate suspension of the decision to increase electricity rates in Linden; and establishment of a Procurement Commission by May 31st 2012.
“If we make these cuts, we will be able to give the ordinary man the relief he so badly needs.”
The AFC officials made these comments during a media briefing at the Sidewalk Café, which they said they had called the media to address some of the concerns and issues regarding the 2012 Budget and consideration of the Estimates, which began yesterday.
Nagamootoo charged that there had been a lot of nepotism, a lot of cronyism, and a lot of incestuous relationships between the people who hire the contract workers and those who were hired.
He charged that this selective way of hiring people was an anti-working class policy, and that contract workers represented an attack on trade unionism, because the people on contract do not subscribe to trade unions, and therefore the trade union did not have ways of getting dues from the contract employees.
“And so you weaken the trade union movement and you prevent the worker in Guyana from having the benefit of very strong, militant union representation, or the benefit of Collective Labour Agreement.”
He said the AFC intended to bring Guyana back to a period in which there was restoration of the rights of employees, so that they become free from the shackles of politicization and political allegiance.
“We want to go back to the basics, to the basics where we have professionalized bodies like the Public Service Commission (PSC) to take care of employment; to stop the abuse and to stop the partisan selection of people on contract jobs on super salaries and allowances, and into positions of sinecure,” Nagamootoo said.
He said this position was part of the AFC’s overarching policy that the poor, the disadvantaged, the deprived, and the working people should have priority consideration in allocations in the budget.
He stressed that the AFC intended to propose judicious cuts, and to trim the fat in the budget, which included the super salaries of contract workers, so as to make allowances for the ordinary man to have a better day.