— Minister Singh tells Leonora gathering
FINANCE Minister Dr. Ashni Singh has said that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government will not allow the combined Opposition to frustrate development in the country.
Addressing residents of Leonora, West Coast Demerara last Monday evening, he spoke at length about the almost $21B cuts in the national budget made by the Opposition, and on the implications of those reckless actions in cutting crucial projects.
The combined opposition parliamentary parties demolished the 2012 national budget by viciously cutting significant programmes, including more than $18B in projects under the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which has received widespread national support and international acclaim; and subjecting several agencies to cuts, putting scores of persons on the breadline.
“I particularly appreciate the chance to come and meet with you at this time, because I believe that we are at a critical juncture in our country’s history,” the minister told residents. “And you need — as political leaders, which some of you are; as community leaders, which many of you are; and as citizens, which all of you are… to be able to speak in an informed fashion on the issues that currently confront our country,” he said.
He reminded that since the 10th Parliament had convened, the one-seat dictatorship had been used to distort the functioning of Parliament and to achieve “what can only be described as perverse outcomes”.
He pointed to the two parties, on the first sitting, seizing speakership and deputy speakership of the National Assembly.
“You are dealing with a political opposition that cannot be trusted. In fact, if you look at some of the things that the opposition is asking for and some of the things that they cut in the budget, you will see such blatant double standards and such a blatant abandonment of principle that you have to ask yourselves how can these people in the APNU and the AFC, how can they hold their heads high and look at the Guyanese people in their eyes?” he stated.
Alluding to the example of electricity, he noted that government spends $2.9B a year subsidising electricity in Linden, which is equivalent to more than 10 percent of the whole of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) revenue in a year.
He said GPL customers currently pay as much as $64 per kilowatt hour, while persons in Linden pay as little as $5 per kilowatt hour, making their use of electricity virtually free. And because of this, the per capita consumption of electricity in Linden is three times as high as the rest of the country.
Pointing to the need to align electricity rates in Linden with the rest of the country, he noted that the then Prime Minister, the late Forbes Burnham of the PNC, is quoted in an article from 1976 while in Linden, saying that he was not Prime Minister of Linden alone but was Prime Minister of the whole of Guyana, and “Linden cannot continue to enjoy this freeness”.
He said that in an effort to adjust the tariffs of Linden, budget 2012 provided for the first step with a subsidy of about $1.9B, but the tariffs would be adjusted in Linden  on the basis of gradualism and selectivity.
Singh noted that the AFC and APNU insisted that Linden tariffs must not be adjusted, but, more astonishingly, they cut the subsidy for GPL by $1B.
He said that throughout the discussions, the Opposition insisted on unreasonable positions, stating: “Everything that they proposed we responded[to] with a reasonable argument; and everything that the government proposed was rejected, and unreasonable positions were maintained.
“This is a party that ran a government that was living above its means prior to 1992, and that had no apology for bankrupting this country,” the Minister of Finance reminded in concluding, “So it comes as no surprise that all of their policies will result in the bankrupting of this country.
“We have been careful to bring our country back from the brink of bankruptcy, and so they come now to the Parliament and propose cuts in expenditure that can have no purpose other than to stymie development in this country,” he said.
Turning to the LCDS, he said it was a national strategy unanimously endorsed by the Parliament in December 2009, and consultations were carried out throughout the length and breadth of Guyana. Its projects included the Amaila Falls hydropower project, the Amerindian land demarcation, strengthening Amerindian village economies, and setting up a small business development fund to support small businesses throughout the country. All was cut to zero.
“This is money that our country has already earned; that the Kingdom of Norway has already deposited in a trust fund being managed by the World Bank; that we have been fighting as a government to have those resources flow to our country as quickly as possible,” he said.
“…and yet they will hold their heads up high and pretend to be responsible political leaders,” Minister Singh highlighted.
Outlining the benefits of hydro power, he said, “Nobody in their right mind can object to hydro power”, and on the verge of realizing the country’s hydro power potential: “the AFC and APNU come together and cut the Amaila Falls project from the budget”.
He pointed to reducing to zero the subventions for several entities, including the Government Information Agency (GINA) and the National Communications Network (NCN). He said that move placed persons on the breadline, and he deemed those actions unjustifiable.
“Any initiative aimed to stifle or to close down an entity like GINA is not consistent with a person who is committed to democracy, because by closing down GINA you are denying citizens information about what their government is doing,” he noted.
Another action that showed the opposition parties’ lack of commitment to democracy, he stated, was the cutting of the GECOM budget by $527M. “Is this the behaviour of political leaders who are interested in development? Is this the behaviour of political leaders who are committed to democracy, to cut the budget of GECOM for local government elections that have not been held since 1994?” he asked.
He insisted, “It is important that the people of this country can see through them, and can understand that what you really have going on is an unholy alliance – two parties that have come together essentially for the purposes of flexing political muscle, and essentially with the intention of seizing political power.”
Singh referred to AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan saying, “The people who lose their jobs are collateral damage”; APNU Member Carl Greenidge saying, “We have no apology to offer”; and APNU Leader David Granger saying “These cuts are about political leverage”.
About talk that the government can always come back with a supplementary, he responded, “Does their behaviour with Financial Papers Numbers 7 and 8 tell you that you can trust them when it comes to a supplementary? The answer is no.
“So these excuses that they are making about reversible and supplementary (are) a  smokescreen.  They have realised the damage that they have done, they realise that they have done things that will hurt ordinary Guyanese, and that is why they are scrambling now to find all sorts of excuses,” he said.
“I believe that there is an important lesson to be learned coming out of budget 2012. You are dealing with an unprincipled political opposition that has wasted no time in demonstrating how it will use its dictatorship of one…to pursue its own national interest and to hurt the interest of the people of Guyana,” he insisted.
He said people must learn from this experience, and added, “You, as community leaders, have a responsibility to ensure that the people in your community understand this national situation that we are facing. We must not let them stymie development. We must not let them frustrate our efforts to improve peoples’ lives.
“We will not be diverted from the development of our country. We will not let the PNC, we will not let the APNU, we will not let the AFC, we will not let them use this dictatorship of one to frustrate the development of this country,” he assured.
He alluded to the progress that has been made over the years, and reiterated: “We, the PPP, will not allow the APNU and the AFC to frustrate development in this country, and we need your support in rejecting them.
“We need to be alert today to ensure that the people of Guyana understand the implications of what the AFC and the APNU are trying to do,” the PPP/C Member of Parliament implored.
“You can be assured that development in this country will continue under the PPP,” Minister Singh promised.