–VP Jagdeo debunks Norton’s comments on Budget 2023
VICE-PRESIDENT, Bharrat Jagdeo, on Tuesday, upbraided Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton for his “asinine” claims and lack of “analytical substance” regarding Budget 2023.
The Vice-President, during a live interview on social media, replied to Norton who said that the $781.9 billion budget was “anti-poor” and “anti-working class.”
In his reply to this, Jagdeo said: “I feel sorry for them. They don’t have a governing philosophy. Without the governing philosophy, a bunch of mediocre people, the only consequence or the only result could be disaster.
“And this is what we find every single time they open their mouth. That is some disastrous comment or comment that people find extraordinarily stupid,” Jagdeo said.
He added that he is not surprised since this was the party’s “whole problem and the uninspiring nature of the leadership.”
“They have, as we have seen in the past… they have had a long period of over 35 years of running this country in the post-independence period. And that includes the years that they were in control of the Parliament from 2011. They have made a mockery of development and they’ve shown that they’re incapable of planning and executing a development programme.
“So, the result has been very apparent, very evident for every Guyanese to see. It has been disastrous in terms of loss of employment and welfare and civil rights and people having to flee this country and overall poverty that we’ve had.
“And the sad thing is that the same people will be straight-faced… the biggest contributor to the malaise and the economic downturn in Guyana, and the loss of welfare and the biggest contributors to poverty in Guyana are the ones who are now riding on high horses talking about poverty,” the Vice-President said.
He added that the PPP/C could show a sustained programme to tackle those things. However, with ideologies like Norton’s, Jagdeo said that is why they have such mischaracterisation of the budget.
“They have very little to say frankly speaking, so they speak in clichés. I’ve seen a ton of clichés about the worker, and nothing of analytical substance in the budget,” he said.
The Vice-President addressed Norton’s claims that $94 billion was allocated in the 2023 budget and there were “no wages and salaries announcements” for the teachers.
“… We budgeted for wages and salaries in 2023… it is just that the announcement will not be made now, it’s done towards the end of the year,” Jagdeo said.
Referencing evidence of the government’s commitment, the Vice-President said employment cost grew by $38 billion in the first three years, something the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) had failed to do while in government for five years.
While addressing Norton’s criticisms on the raise of pay to the public sector workers, the Vice-President said that they have budgeted $107 billion for employment costs in the public sector.
“$107 billion will go into people’s pockets… and you know, the funny thing is that if you compare 2014 when the last year when the PPP was in office to 2019 to the last year they produce a budget… they had five years, five budgets that the employment costs- that is wages and salaries of public servants- grew by $27 billion in that period and in the first three years of the PPP/C, employment costs are wages and salaries, grew $38 billion,” he highlighted.
“So, we have given almost $11 billion more in the third year than they did for the whole five years… And he says nothing is there,” the Vice-President added.
HAND-TO-MOUTH PHILOSOPHY
He said the former coalition administration had a “hand-to-mouth philosophy,” which they used to run their party and their stint while in government.
“That’s how APNU runs the affairs of the parties, and they believe they can run the country. Now all of our citizens must reject that because you will never accumulate anything to manage a country from a party like that.
“You will never own a house, you will always have to rent a house. We are working towards people owning a house,” Jagdeo said while listing some of things that would not have been possible with APNU’s philosophy.
According to Jagdeo, the off-the-wall thinking of the parties can be shown in the allocations of their budget while in government, since they did not spend very much on the capital side, i.e. roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, among other thing.
Unlike the coalition, Budget 2023 caters for many big projects such as the new Demerara River Bridge, which is high on their agenda with $5.2 billion allocated to advance its construction.
“Now they may not see that as important. We must eat every cent out. Spend every single cent that’s not important,” Jagdeo said.
By building out key infrastructure, the budget, each year, will eventually go down, which is the same with the gas-to-energy project.
With this project, persons are expected to save at least US$100 million a year given the fact that this initiative will cut the cost of electricity by 50 per cent.
The low rates of power generation would encourage investments in manufacturing, an area which the opposition leader said the government did not cater for in its budget.
The Vice-President said, however, that the manufacturing industry is an area of major focus for the government and it is evidenced by the initiatives in the budget.