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Greenidge told the House that while his party had no problem with the substance of the programmes catered for under the fund, it wanted the agency constituted as separate and distinct from its current arrangement and suggested that should this be done then a future approval of the estimates could be had.
The Alliance for Change (AFC), however, indicated that it was satisfied with the answers provided and withdrew its proposal to cut.
Greenidge’s motion to reduce the fund to $1 was put to the vote, but all seven members of the AFC abstained from voting to cut the fund thereby securing its approval in a 26/29 vote as three members of the government benches had been absent.
Dr Anthony had indicated to the House that among the various programmes catered for by the fund, included provisions for the Caribbean Press for which a number of local authors had secured funding for publishing their works inclusive of an editor at the Stabroek News, Anna Benjamin, Ian Mac Donald, among others.
He said too that the programme has also supported a University of Guyana initiative whereby the ministry would support the production of short films.
The allocations for the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport were by the end of the evening approved in its totality.
Meanwhile, the issue of the list of old age pensioners again sparked a heated debate in the House, when AFC’s Dr Veerasammy Ramaya, requested from the Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr Jennifer Webster the list of the 42,500 pensioners.
He sought to raise the issue of ‘phantom’ names being on the list, but according to the minister, the information being provided to the House is verifiable.
The more than $5.8B allocation for the payment of old age pension was approved as well as additional sums related to the provisions of a subsidy as it relates to the payment of water and electricity bills by pensioners.
Minister Webster informed the House also, as a result of queries made, that her ministry is seeking to address the issue of delays in the pension payments to persons in outlying regions and said that, at present, they are exploring the option of utilizing the banking systems in the regions.
She said the ministry was not at fault as it relates to the unavailability of monies at the various outlying divisions given that the ministry would make bulk payments to the post office which in turn distributes the money.
Webster was at the time responding to APNU’s Volda Lawrence, who told the House that persons in outlying regions sometimes travel great distances and would be forced to wait for days to collect their pensions as a result of the unavailability of cash at the various post offices.
The Minister also provided a range of answers in relation to queries over monies to be expended at the Palms Geriatric home as well as child related programmes managed by the ministry.
Junior Finance Minister, Bishop Juan Edghill was grilled over expenditures to be utilized by the Office of the President inclusive of a $4.5B allocation to service the administration’s e-governance programme.
Both APNU and the Alliance for Change had laid motions threating to eliminate the provision but answers by Edghill proved effective.
Edghill told the House that included in the amounts are allocations that cater for installation of the 54 LTE towers, their security as well as for fees to be paid to Globenet for the provision of internet services to be utilised under the fiber optic cable that is landed in Guyana from Brazil.
Edghill was questioned also on whether the Guyana Government had intended on selling bandwidth to private consumers or entities, to which the Junior Finance Minister said no such decision has been taken.
He indicated that the priority would be for the administration’s e-governance programme as well as the provision of bandwidth to the relevant institutions.
Responding to APNU’s Region 9 representative, Sydney Allicock, on the completion of the works on e-governance and the fiber optic cable, Minister Edghill told the House that the Georgetown ring of the project along with its integration to the Lethem link will be completed by the end of September this year.
He said the remaining interconnections from Moleson Creek in Berbice to Parika in Essequibo will be completed in the second quarter of next year.
Included in the monies also would be for the purchase and distribution of the computers under the One Lap Top per Family Programme, Edghill said.
AFC’s Valerie Gariddo-Lowe had also sought answers on the OLPF programme as it relates to the hinterland regions, but according to Edghill, government has not rolled out the programme to interior locations as yet given that it wanted the necessary infrastructure in place first to provide services such as internet access and training.
The Junior Finance Minister was also grilled on a number of other aspects of Office of the President’s allocations including the management of its fleet of vehicles and staffing details.
By the end of the marathon session the opposition signaled its satisfaction with the answers provided and refused to prosecute any of the proposed cuts, apart from the subsidies under OP for the Government Information Agency (GINA) and the National Communications Network.
These were slashed from the 2013 Budgetary allocations while the Capital Expenditure for the two agencies were nonetheless approved.
Among the other allocations that were approved by the House yesterday in its totality are monies for the Guyana Defence Force, the Police Force, Teaching Service Commission, Office of the Ombudsman as well as the Public Service Appellate Tribunal.
