–Irfaan Ali questions

DESCRIBING the 2018 National Budget as a “slip and slide,” opposition parliamentarian, Irfaan Ali, who opened the debates on Monday, said the estimates is out of touch with the ordinary citizen and that the promised good life is still elusive.

“This budget is devoid of any measure to rescue the ailing economy or improve the wellbeing of our people,” said Ali, a former Minister of Housing. He told the House in a passionate presentation that the ‘good life’ as proffered by the coalition government will not be a reality in the future.

Speaking about the country’s economic performance over the past two and a half years, Ali told the House that “the economy has lost its vibrancy since 2015 and continues to limp along towards the elusive ‘good life’ concept.”

“Mr. Speaker, the suboptimal performance of our economy is not accidental, but may be attributed to poor policy decisions and gross mismanagement by APNU-AFC government that caused our traditional sectors to underperform,” he stated. According to the opposition MP, Budget 2018 lacks creativity and provides no hope for citizens, while noting that Guyana is on a “slippery pathway to the green concept— the good lie and not a good life.”

Turning his attention to inflation, Ali said the slowdown in the economy has resulted in consumers having to cope with rising prices for food, media and personal care along with education. “Where is the good life, where is the improvement in the economy…government has underperformed, government has failed to deliver to the Guyanese people,” he declared as his colleagues supported him. He reminded the House that it was the coalition government which promised the electorate that it would weed out corruption and guarantee transparency while in office.

He said in analyzing the information presented by Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, in his 2018 budget speech, the economy posted suboptimal growth rates for 2017 as a result of what he believes to be the inability of the APNU-AFC government to formulate policies to rescue the ailing export sectors.

Ali said too that the prices for food, housing, transportation, medical and personal care, education, recreation, and culture increased markedly due to the tax measures introduced in 2017.

“Our overall external balance of payments has deteriorated and resulted in significant depletion of our gross international reserves and import cover,” he stated while opining that the proposed measures in Budget 2018 are “woefully inadequate and can only generate the suboptimal results.”

“There is little in the budget 2018 to revive the key export sectors, diversify our economic base, or improve the wellbeing of the average Guyanese, especially vulnerable groups such as single parents, youths, pensioners,” Ali concluded.