.jpg)
“It is almost an electioneering budget, there is a little bit for everyone; but it is not going to bring about the change that we are looking for,” he stated.
Granger remarked that the APNU is looking for significant change in the areas of poverty alleviation, the education system, and job creation. He said these were not indicated in the budget.
“So it is void, it is empty of the major factors that will transform the economy; so it is very disappointing. It is bland, void, vacant. That’s my innate reaction to that; much more needed to be done,” he affirmed.
Granger said he believes the Government could have benefited from meaningful consultation with the opposition, and asserted that he does not see anything in the budget that would “make life in Guyana better for us.”
He opined that the budget encompasses a general approach to the sugar industry, the electricity industry and Linden, and includes very heavy subsidies. He said his party would have to examine those figures in order to determine the impact they (figures) would have on the Guyanese people.
Granger said the move to increase the old age pension from $10,000 to $12,500 is a movement in the right direction, but the sum to be paid is inadequate, since the APNU had asked for pensions to be taken to $15,000.
Highlighting the decrease of the National Insurance Scheme’s (NIS) income tax threshold rate from 33% to 30%, Granger said that is not going to be significant in terms of what the household needs to be able to move the families out of poverty.
He opined that given Budget 2013 as presented by Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh, the poverty stricken households will more or less remain roughly the way they were in 2012.
Alliance For Change (AFC) Member of Parliament Moses Nagamootoo opined that a budget cannot be judged on its size, but rather on its content. He said the AFC would have to examine what the budget seeks to do to change the lives of people.
Nagamootoo affirmed that the AFC would have liked the budget to address the issue of Guyana’s unemployment rate, which he believes the current government, as well as the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), has avoided.
He said the 2013 budget was as hopeless as last year’s, and that it is meant to titillate people with propaganda points and highlights what the current government has done.
Nagamootoo said this year’s budget is merely a repetition of last year’s, and it will not impact on the lives of the Guyanese people.
“It’s not a doom-and-gloom budget, but it is a budget that has been characterised by severe inadequacy,” he said.
APNU’s Carl Greenidge labelled the 2013 budget a very disappointing one, and said there was a missed opportunity to look at a number of areas in which both the opposition and the government could have come to a consensus.
“You’ve had a budget that touches on a variety of little issues here and there, but the key issues that have to do with unemployment, growing inequalities in this country, and the need to stimulate and to properly manage the key sectors around which diversification could be framed, nothing of consequence is happening there,” he added.
Greenidge said the implications of the budget in the various sectors of the economy would have to be carefully examined.
“We can see that some of this focuses on keeping the business community happy. I am glad that at least one set of people can be kept happy, but there are others who are in need and need attention,” he stated.
Highlighting the NIS proposals in the budget, Greenidge opined that they were less than satisfactory. He said the APNU is looking for a longer-term solution to problems, such as the loss of investment income, which was not mentioned.
Greenidge declared that Dr. Ashni Singh continues to behave as though the 2011 elections did not take place. He said the public’s concern to hear the measures taking place on the regulatory front, such as NIS, and the public’s concern over both discrimination and corruption were not mentioned.
