– Shaddick
AS the budget debate gained momentum, on day four, Member of Parliament and former Minister of Human Services, Bibi Shaddick, presented to the National Assembly a continuous development course embarked on by the current administration since it entered office in October 1992.
“The PPP/C Government will remain on the course that it has charted, and vows that Guyana will never go back to the days when people had to
line up for food and petrol,…we are not going to go back to six-hour scheduled blackouts…now, when people get a 10-minute blackout they are quarrelling,” Shaddick said.
Shaddick contended that the Alliance For Change keeps saying that VAT should be brought to 10% and the income tax threshold to $60,000, along
with a number of other increases for teachers and the joint services; but, she wanted to know how this would be done.
“ I would like the honourable member (Dr Ramayya) to identify which places he will take out $5 million from, and what’s not going to suffer…how it will not affect the capital budget…the AFC’s plans are campaign promises…you do not repeat those things when you come into parliament,” Shaddick said.
Dispelling the statements made by MP John Adams who said that Region 3 was not being properly developed, Shaddick extended an
invitation to the member to visit the region.
“Not to just drive from where he lives to the bridge…see what is happening, I wonder what he meant when he said that the West Demerara
Secondary school is a disaster waiting to happen, because it floods…if his yard floods then it is a disaster waiting to happen…Guyana is below sea level, we will have floods, but the water runs off quickly,” Shaddick said.
She contended that the member needs to move around Region 3 and observe the developmental changes that occurred since the PPP/C government has been in office.
“In 2011,the Region 3 capital budget was $225M…in 2012 the capital budget is $280.5M…which will be used to execute a number of infrastructural works on roads, bridges, land development, improve conditions at the Stanleytown library, new drainage and irrigation
projects, construct structures like kokers, among others…I am inviting these people to see what is happening in the region,” Shaddick said.
The former Human Services Minister, addressing MP Carl Greenidge’s foreign debt statements, said he should be the last to speak about such a scenario, as under the PNC the debt that was accrued had sucked the life out of the country.