– Luncheon
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon has disclosed that he was disturbed and even annoyed at the point raised by the Alliance for Change (AFC) that Government has not transferred funds from the National Industrial & Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) into the Consolidated Fund. AFC had proposed that the Value Added Tax (VAT) be reduced but government did not accept the proposal pointing out that, should this be done, enough money would not be available to meet other expenses.
AFC then suggested that NICIL has billions of dollars that could be brought into the Consolidated Fund for people to access and, thereafter, charged that a lot of revenue is being stolen.
“We want accountability,” the opposition party had demanded at a recent press conference.
However, asked to comment on the issue, Luncheon told the Guyana Chronicle, on the sidelines of his usual post-Cabinet media briefing, that NICIL is a private company.
He explained that the articles of association of NICIL impose no obligation on the government to take the action AFC wanted.
“There are 20 something articles that underpin the creation of NICIL and none of them say that money from NICIL has to be put into the Consolidated Fund. None of it,” Luncheon declared.