IN less than a week’s time, on August 10, the new coalition Government will unveil its first-ever state budget. The announcement was made by Finance Minister Winston Jordan who, having worked in the budget ‘war room’ for many years, is not a novice.He may seek to give this ‘Jordan Budget’ a unique appeal. By the time the general debate is over, and the estimates of proposed spending, head by head, are over, it would be September.

In this sense, therefore, the 2015 Budget technically would be for a four-month period. So far, spending has been limited to the amounts authorised by the Constitution, which is one-twelfth of the current expenditure of the previous year, to keep the public service paid and essential services addressed.

Experts say that this is what is called a ‘Constitutional Budget’, which must be presented within a specified period after the holding of elections and a new Government installed.

The coalition has held consultations with several key stakeholders, including the de facto Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) which, almost three months after the polls, is yet to take up its 32 seats in the National Assembly.

From all indications, this will be a populist budget with something for all. Minister Jordan has hinted that public servants will get an increase in salary, perhaps higher than the uninspiring 5% that was doled out year by year by the previous PPP Government.

In the past, workers cynically associated the PPP regime with payment of starvation wages, which resulted in widespread demoralisation, corrupt practices and a resort to contracted employees who received special salaries.
Observers are of the opinion that public servants could have received elevated pay increases had it not been for the waste of monies on what Guyanese readily see as “square pegs in round holes” that had occupied strategic posts, to carry out partisan, party functions, and what is painfully being discovered as pilfering of public funds.
Indications from several forensic audits are showing that the previous Administration had brought several sectors of the economy to an almost dead-end. The PPP Administration could not guarantee wages to sugar workers beyond a week of the May 2015 elections and literally handed over to the Granger-led coalition, a basket to fetch water. The sugar industry is heavily indebted at a time when production has hit an alarming low and the new Government has had to provide an initial $3 billion bailout. The sugar worries are far from over since production costs far exceeds the price at which our sugar is sold and the ‘Jagdeo Magic’, styled a modernised Skeldon factory on which the previous Government spent some $50 billion plus an additional $15 billion in financial bailout, has turned into a nightmare.
The rice sector which has seen boom in production, is facing severe challenges to find new markets. A recent historic National Rice Conference, the first of its kind, has authorised creative approaches to deal with the situation. Again, the previous Administration sat on vital information that the rice sale deal with Venezuela was precarious but the administration remained silent, as it did about the troubles in the sugar industry.
Then, there are the continuing challenges facing the gold industry with the price on a roller-coaster, but not bouncing back to the all-time high in gold price that was enjoyed just a year ago.
With the fall in the level of Gross Domestic Product earnings, it will take much more than political will for the coalition Government to deliver on all of the pre-elections promises.
But a populist approach may see not only a hike in public service wages, but measures to give working people more disposable incomes such as zero-rating more items on the VAT list and freeing more wage earners from the income tax net. We expect that there would be an increase in old age pension as well as a subsidy to lower the Berbice River Bridge toll.
As the days tick faster before the August 10 ‘Jordan Budget’ we expect that the goodies in store for our people, will incrementally take us closer to the enjoyment of a better life.