FORMER President, David Granger, is driving around in a $35.2M Lexus motor vehicle which he chose to take when leaving office, much unlike what his administration did to former President, Donald Ramotar, when it wanted to give him a Toyota Raum.

This was disclosed by Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, during a press conference on Friday at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre when the issue of government spending on vehicles was raised.

“When you look at the spending on vehicles under APNU, it’s enormous. Last year, they bought a vehicle for former President Granger, $35.2M, the best Land Cruiser is between $17M to $20M depending on who you buy it from, the best with all the features inside, and they spent on a Lexus $35.2M, and guess where it is now, it’s with Granger. We didn’t take it back, he carried it off, he has that, a $35.2M vehicle. Harmon should be ashamed since he ordered that last year,” the Vice-President said.

He said the invoice can be produced if there is a denial.

The opposition had criticised the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government for setting aside some $95M in the 2020 budget to buy new vehicles for top Government officials.
Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira, said that such was as a consequence of the damaged state in which several vehicles were handed over to the new government by former ministers of the APNU+AFC government.
“When former ministers submitted their vehicles, we found cracked windshields, the seats were damaged and stained and ripped up – we don’t know who did that – and when some of the ministers got into the vehicle and drove down the road they discovered different size tyres on the vehicle and radios damaged… so this money is to do some repairs and purchase new vehicles,” she explained.
The funding, which is to be spent from October to December 2020, did not find favour with the APNU+AFC coalition.
“I am still using (Toyota Land cruiser) PPP 2 which I have used since 2010 and it’s a great vehicle, its 10 years old and still driving well, the vehicles they bought, GRA had a tonne of transfers and I got to get that list, apart from the list of who they sold,” Jagdeo said.

The VP explained that under the APNU+AFC administration, many vehicles were sold outside of tendering, for “$200,000 and $300,000, a new vehicle for $200,000 to their supporters”.

Jagdeo also emphasised that it was sickening to see APNU+AFC parliamentarians speak about corruption.

“A lot of them sitting in Parliament now… they just collected taxes and spent the money and bought fancy vehicles, our maintenance budget for vehicles have gone up by $700M a year from the 2014 level,” the VP said.

He explained that the Government is now tasked with rebooting the economy after the last administration’s squandermania and poor policies destroyed the country.

Jagdeo also said that the Government is focusing on putting monies in people’s pockets for them to spend, not take it out through taxation.