Tomorrow is Budget Day 2018.
This will be the fourth consecutive national budget within just over 900 days of the Coalition assuming office. In terms of quantity, this ”Jordan Budget” is expected to top the double-billion level that former Finance Minister Ashni Singh had set when he introduced what was then touted as “the biggest budget ever”.

What the Guyanese people would expect, however, is that the budget would have as well, quality; that big must be better. They expect a budget with social content that would address the more pressing needs in their communities.

BUDGET WISH-LIST
As is customary, roving reporters were asking folks on the streets to reveal their budget wish-list. The random comments went like this:
“I want my street fixed”; “I want my bridge fixed”; “I’d like street lights”.
Some highlighted crimes as a big problem in their communities and insisted: “gimme a police outpost; gimme more police patrols”. Others demanded reliable power supply, potable water, renovated or new markets, cleaner burial grounds and access-to-farm roads.

The responses from the odd persons who hail from interior locations were restricted to all-weather trails and roads, safer bridges, frequent river transport and renovated airstrips, with lower fares.
I am sure that persons from rural areas would have been pleased to include in their wish list facilities to provide passports, and to process birth/death certificates.

All of the above would require bigger votes for the 10 administrative regions whose governing councils would be expected to play a greater role in social development. Even if more monies were allocated, as has been the pattern since the coalition took office, there is no guarantee that the wishes of the people would be satisfied in regions where the Opposition controls the Councils. The Opposition could derail the regional and neighbourhood development budgets with its negative campaign of non-cooperation and civil disobedience.

LITTLE THINGS
The street folks were not glued to the so-called big ticket projects such as hydro schemes, deep water ports and multiple-lane highways, the promise of which the previous Government had dazzled our people on the eve of elections. Many of those were hurriedly concocted as legacy or signature projects, but were clumsily and poorly implemented.
The task to re-design and complete those projects had fallen upon our coalition.

Works on the East Bank Highway have been wrapped up, leaving installation of road markers to be done. To come on stream within months are upgrades of the East Coast and West Coast highways, and the Cheddi Jagan international airport runway and terminal buildings.
It was the Pharaoh who had wished, as he banished Moses: “The cities that you built shall bear my name…” His words; not mine.

On this occasion, the Guyanese people — ordinary, every-day folks — want a budget for 2018 that contains many little things — many precious little things. These could help change the condition of their communities and improve the quality of their lives.
Having spent all my political life with the grassroots, I was conscious of the needs of our people, when I wrote in the 2015 Manifesto:

“The APNU+AFC Coalition is not lured by the glitz and dazzle of new promises. Our coalition has put into place a real programme that would bring relief to towns and villages, the hinterland and indigenous communities, and to maximise the role of our women and youth in social development.”

NEW BEGINNING
We promised a new beginning to address the major problems that we had inherited, and today we see in almost all of our communities evidence of incremental, modest change.
We have roads, bridges, and street lamps where before there was none. We have regional out-reach radio stations for the first time that draw the coast and the interior closer. We have new telecommunications links with many classrooms being hooked up to Internet. We have surveillance by air for pirates, and patrols in boats, on horseback and foot for narco-traffickers. And in an emergency, we can now dial 911.

We could look around and find cleaner surroundings, renovated schools, health facilities, new wells and housing projects. Over the months we witnessed frenetic efforts to maintain allocations for and to improve the delivery of the essential social services, though it would have been difficult to keep pace with growing expectations.
We have done so over these months without a boast or fanfare. We are the people’s players in the middle doing as best as we could. We let the audience in the Opposition jeer us, cheer us and make the noise.

Louder noise means that we are doing better since we embarked on building the edifice of a law governed, orderly state. We have checked Executive abuse and lawlessness, and endemic corruption. Our “big Ticket” achievements were in areas of governance, starting from the holding of Local Government Elections. These were denied for over 20 years but were held within months under our new Government.

The election of Councils at the village and municipal levels, including in three new towns, has re-invigorated the base of our society. The many little things that ought to be done, would be laid at the feet of the regional administrations and these Councils, given shifts in budgetary allocations for community projects.

I expect this 2018 Budget to chart a new focus that would take policy-makers back to base, to the grassroots, where ordinary folks hold us to our words that the good life is possible, for all.