Gov’t, Opposition try to find common ground on proposed budget cuts
– consideration of estimates for OP, OPM, Finance Ministry slated for today’s sitting of the House.
THE consideration of estimates for the Offices of the President and Prime Minister, for which the parliamentary opposition are proposing cuts to their budgetary allocations, did not take place yesterday, as was scheduled. Instead, the Donald Ramotar-led government was, up to late last night, engaging the Opposition in talks with the view of finding common ground ahead of today’s crucial sitting of the National Assembly.
Yesterday’s sitting, scheduled to begin at 14:00 hrs, was delayed for about an hour. When it began, Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, noted that, for the second time in a matter of days, he had to commence the sitting later than the scheduled time.
“Today’s decision for the postponement was no different to that taken on the last occasion, as some members of our Assembly, very senior, prominent members of the Assembly, were in a very important meeting; and a decision was taken to allow them to complete their discussions and, of course, give them time to be present,” Trotman told the House.
“I apologise for the late start, but I believe that, in the circumstances, it could not be avoided,” the Speaker declared.
Scores of workers from several agencies, such as the National Communications Network (NCN), the Government Information Agency (GINA), Office of the President (OP), and those from the One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) project and Office of the Climate Change Unit, who would be adversely affected by the proposed budget cuts, staged a protest in downtown Brickdam, a short distance away from Parliament Buildings, to voice their concerns over the proposal by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) to cut billions of dollars from the 2012 budget — including allocations that fall under the Office of the President, and $18B under the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) projects — in an alarming move that could affect several significant areas of development, as well as place a number of persons on the breadline, without jobs.
During the exercise, several supporters of APNU sought to disrupt those citizens’ right to express their concerns with their unruly behaviour.
The AFC and APNU tabled separate motions in the National Assembly on Monday. Two notice papers of Motions for Amendments, to be moved in the Committee of Supply of the National Assembly to the Estimates of Expenditure for the financial year 2012, were circulated to the House. One is in the name of APNU Member of Parliament (MP) Mr. Carl Greenidge, proposing certain cuts to the budgets of several agencies, including the Office of the President, Office of the Prime Minister, and Ministry of Finance – which could seriously impact the LCDS and Guyana’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) drive; and even provisions to GINA and NCN.
The other Motion was tabled in the name of AFC Leader and MP, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, proposing cuts to programmes under Office of the President and Office of the Prime Minister as well; and the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Meanwhile, Prime Minister and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Samuel Hinds, informed the National Assembly that the leaders of the three parties in Parliament were meeting with President Donald Ramotar “so as to seek to avoid collisions and collapse of the process that we are on now.
“And I think (that) we have mutually agreed that we would today complete Regions 8,9 and 10, but seek to postpone consideration of OP and OPM to tomorrow, so that we could continue to meet and maybe hopefully find some accommodation on the major issues which are at least implied in the motions which were submitted yesterday,” he said.
The discussions among the parties were reportedly continuing up to press time.