– Teixeira downplays ‘fresh start’

THE country’s Junior Finance Minister Jaipaul Sharma Wednesday argued that the coalition has had to “clean up the mess” left by the PPP in order to create a path to development.
He credited prudent financial management by the now 19-month-old government to raise revenues after staring down a bare treasury left by the PPP after 23 years in government.
His comments in the National Assembly were meant to counter sharp criticism of the 2017 budget by Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira. In her contribution to the budget debate, she said malnutrition has increased after recording a steady decline for more than two decades.

Delivering what was expected to be a fiery speech in the House during the budget debate, Teixeira’s contribution was greeted with deafening silence from all Members of Parliament (MPs), except for sporadic outbursts from the other side of the House, which was accused of presenting an “anti-people and anti-developmental” budget.
The Chief Whip, like many of her colleagues who presented before her, rejected the $250B Budget which was presented by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan on November 28.
“I support wholeheartedly the Opposition’s call for the withdrawal of the 2017 budget and the removal of the repressive and oppressive taxation measures,” she told the House, adding that the opposition party stands ready to offer its knowledge, experience, and expertise to craft a new budget.
She contended that even ministers of Government, who had already made presentations, had difficulties defending the budget – a budget, she said the man in the street is opposed to.
“You appear oblivious; you seem to be living in la la land,” Teixeira told the Government MPs.
She supported her argument of why the government appears to be oblivious to the plight of the Guyanese people, by referencing malnutrition statistics which appear in the appendix of Budget 2017.
“For the first time in 23 years, that the immunisation rates in this country has dropped. How dare you in a matter of 19 months take our immunisation figures [and] drop them from what was 96 per cent, to 70s and 69? How dare you do that?”
She noted that this was a flagship of Guyana, and it is ironic that the government speaks about the “good life” when the immunisation statistics show differently.
“This is the fresh start? This fresh start is an abysmal fail” she added.
Teixeira, who served as a Presidential Advisor on Governance, took several more jabs at the executive, noting that it has a “green strategy” that it has no clue of defining.
In relation to the economy, she argued that the APNU+AFC government inherited a country that was registering positive, consistent economic growth. However, she noted that economic growth has since dropped to 2 per cent, which is lower than what the Finance Minister had projected for 2016.
The Chief Whip also rejected government’s justification for presenting an early budget to commence injecting money into the economy at the earliest point in 2017.
According to her, this was an attempt to introduce over 200 new tax measures, just ahead of the Christmas holidays, “so people will forget about it by next year.”
“Walk the streets, and see the empty barber shops, ask the vendors how is business. I encourage you to walk the street and convince people that all of them [citizens] are wrong [about the budget],” she said, implying that citizens were not happy with the budget.
The Opposition MP, whose presentation time had expired at this point, hurriedly referenced a budgetary analysis report by Chartered Accounting firm, Ram and McRae, which stated that, Guyanese can expect a “rough ride in 2017.”

But Minister Jaipaul Sharma, who was the last speaker for the day, did not leave some of Teixeira’s claims unanswered.
With the government claiming it had inherited an empty treasury, and Teixeira claiming otherwise, the Junior Finance Minister maintained that it was empty and funds which were expended by the 19-month-old government were raised through revenue collection.
“We got the money from prudent administration… It is from revenue collection. It wasn’t there,” he said, adding that every sector was catered for in budget 2017.
“Budget [2017] has raised the spirit of Guyanese with the exception of a small, disgruntled minority. It is focused on equity and fairness. Our coalition government, after cleaning up the mess, will now be in a better position to achieve our goals,” Sharma added.
He was convinced that the budget is in keeping with Guyana’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and it will “ease the financial burden on citizens and give them more money in their pockets.”