CHARTERED Accountant and Attorney-at-Law Christopher Ram believes the APNU+AFC Coalition Government has to be bold, come January 29, when it presents its first full year budget to the House.Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle on Friday at his Waterloo Street office, Ram said the issues of unemployment and a reformed tax infrastructure should be addressed in the 2016 budget.

He explained that the major thrust of the budget should be focused on reducing unemployment, which he contends is a “big challenge facing this country”.

Ram said that while infrastructural development will receive significant attention in the budget, similar attention has to be placed on unemployment.

“Yes, fixing infrastructure would help to bring about some employment. It can open new lands, it could reconstruct existing facilities, but I think what we need in a desperate way is the creation of jobs for the tens of thousands of young persons who leave our education system.”

Whether school dropouts or graduates of the University of Guyana (UG), Ram is of the opinion that the system does not allow for the growth of young people.

“Indeed what it offers are jobs that pay salaries that really don’t reflect the level of investment by (the students) themselves and by the State. As a consequence, they say ‘I am gone’.”

It is critical, he said, that the budget has something in it for young people who are unemployed for one reason or another.

“That has got to be a tri-sectoral economy,” Ram told Guyana Chronicle, while noting that communities have to play a bigger role in the creation of jobs.

He noted that in the area of infrastructure, if there are contractors working in Regions 8, 9 and 10, for example, and are employing persons from Region 4 only, then the issue of unemployment in those regions is not being addressed.

SCALE AND COST
Ram, who annually provides an analysis of the budget, said the issue of “scale and cost” must be addressed, so that Guyana would be able to compete in any international market in terms of agro-industrial products, with the exception of a few communities in the diaspora.

“We have got to realise that this is a world that is open and the same cottage industries (communities) that operate in Guyana operate throughout the 50-something countries in Africa and Asia. So it is a tough world out there, and therefore we have got to be creative, resourceful and indigenous.”

He said, too, that no recipe can be pulled out of a book that can address the problems of Guyana or any other country.

REDUCING VAT
Even as the Tax Reform Committee (TRC) submitted to Finance Minister Winston Jordan its report with a range of recommendations on Friday, Ram, a member of the TRC, believes that Government has got to fulfill the promise made in the APNU+AFC Manifesto and campaign of reducing the Value Added Tax (VAT).

“The minister would be conscious of the criticisms being made by the public at large about campaign and manifesto promises not being kept, and so I would believe that whilst he is on record as having said what he said, that he may just change his mind and that the budget will have in fact tax measures on a range of fiscal instruments.”

Minister Jordan had, on Thursday in an article published in the Kaieteur News, said the reduction of VAT is unlikely in this year’s budget, given that the TRC had not submitted the report at the time.

“I would like to see a little boldness by the Finance Minister. Minister Jordan is conservative, but I think at this stage we need more than conservatism…where has it got us…? We have passed the stress test but we still have unacceptable levels of unemployment,” said Ram.

BOLDNESS
He also noted that the “disparity in wealth and income is completely unacceptable”. The chartered accountant and social commentator believes that it will take much courage by the administration to tackle inequality.

“I am looking forward to some boldness, some action, to address the problems we have. If crime, health and education are problems, housing still is a problem; cost is still a big issue. Then inequality feeds into some of these, and is a problem in its own right.”

To address inequality, the issue of redistribution of income must be examined thoroughly. That issue, he said, will create much debate as those who possess the larger section of the pie will resist the cutting of their section rather than building the pie.

But while the focus of the budget, in Ram’s view, should be job creation, the question remains how does the administration tackle that problem?

“You need a proper enabling environment, and you have to look at what makes businesses not only possible but profitable. It might be tax rates, a whole host of measures. You will have to have a different type of approach to one type of business over another.”

Ram noted that the basics of an economy remain unchanged, and it is time that the APNU+AFC Administration examine where the “hiccups and handicaps” are, and seek to alter them.

“…as far as taxation is concerned, what we have to do, we have to make businesses more friendly for those who are tax compliant, and deal harshly with those tax evaders.”

In the areas of crime, healthcare and education, Ram thinks it is absolutely necessary that the Government fulfills all of the promises it has made.
“His (Minister Jordan) task is to make sure that within the constraints of his budget, he can allocate sufficient resources — maximum possible resources — to ensure each of those ministers can properly do their work and deliver on the commitments that the APNU+AFC manifesto so proudly and categorically makes.” (agordon@guyanachronicle.com)

By Ariana Gordon