THE Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO), an arm of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), has expressed its frustration over the combined Opposition’s recent cut of $30 billion from the PPP/Civic Government 2013 Budget. The WPO called the action an unrestrained campaign of economic sabotage by starving Guyanese, particularly the vulnerable, of much needed resources.
A recently issued release said:“The Women’s Progressive Organisation is deeply concerned at the combined effort of the APNU/AFC parliamentary alliance to deny our nation and people of over 30 billion dollars in investment contained in the PPP/C 2013 Budget.”
The organisation pointed out that its membership consists of primarily grassroots women across the country and the budget cuts targeting the operations of critical entities, such as the Guyana Power & Light (GPL) Company of $5.1 billion is most worrying.
It continued:“The facts presented by GPL which have not been disputed by the Parliamentary Opposition clearly indicate that, without this critical injection of resources by the Government, the company will be left with no option but to raise this money by increasing rates on consumers.”
The release explained that this will, no doubt, have a tremendous negative impact on middle and low income families, particularly single parent households.
The WPO said, while the Opposition has already imbued themselves with the power to slash budgets on the premise that they are not provided with sufficient information, they are saturated in the media by the many questions they ask the Government side for which they are obligated to provide the relevant answers.
“We find the motives of the Opposition suspicious as they have conveniently ignored this parliamentary mechanism of accountability and transparency, despite the fact that, for every question asked, they have been provided with a response and the relevant information,” the release stated.
Highlighting slashes from the 2013 Budget, such as the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) and the Cheddi Jagan International Airport expansion project, the WPO said it is clear that the Opposition intends to go all out to ensure these projects do not materialise.

Next generation
This move on the part of the Opposition, said the WPO, will prevent the passing on of a better Guyana to the next generation.
“Importantly also is the message being sent to potential overseas investors by the actions of the opposition. We will now never know the amount of missed opportunities our nation would have benefitted from,” the statement said.
It added that there can be no justification for Guyanese to be kept in a state of underdevelopment, even more so when the resources are available and the actions of the Opposition are designed to affect Guyanese of all walks of life, irrespective of race, religion, economic status or political affiliation.
The WPO called on all Guyanese to utilise responsible but proactive measures in ensuring that the combined Opposition knows of their strong rejection of their anti-nationalistic behaviour.
It also implored all Guyanese to make clear that it is not their intent to stand idly by and watch the unraveling of the gains they have all worked hard to achieve up to this point in the nation’s history.