Carberry dubs Budget 2000, a 'three-card monte game'
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Carberry dubs Budget 2000, a 'three-card monte game'
- PM lauds Jagdeo's captaincy
Stabroek News
April 4, 2000
The debate on this year's budget got off to a shaky start yesterday when the lead speaker for the opposition was late coming from the library.
At minutes after 2 pm PNC member Dunstan Barrow was seen worriedly pacing the floor of the Parliament and looking out of the windows in search of fellow parliamentarian Lance Carberry.
Carberry, who ended up speaking after a warm-up bout between PNC MP Jean Persico and George Fung-On of the PPP/Civic, described the "scorecard" budget as a magician's "three-card monte game. Now you see it. Now you don't." There was no long-term government strategy which the government could point to and say where this budget would lead the country, Carberry declared.
The fissures the budget referred to had been self-inflicted, Carberry suggested, and the near-strangulation of the economy had "got us broke up! Who ain't dead badly injured." He went on: "In fact the fissures are more like government-created chasms. This tinkering at the margins will not take us anywhere."
The economic gains the government boasted of were mere statistical tricks, he said, quoting from a report that showed lack of credibility in statistics gathering.
Carberry said the budget envisaged new income taxes from the creation of the Guyana Revenue Authority when what was needed was new jobs and he challenged the government to show there had been a net gain in jobs since the PPP took office. "Let us get the figures. Where is the investment code?" he asked. "This mendicant attitude of the PPP regime towards the international community will not develop the country."
Carberry described "the absolute neglect of the nation's sea defences" as very dangerous. He talked about the absence of any strategy to take advantage of information technology opportunities; "the starving of the University of Guyana for resources so we could talk about a Berbice campus. What a shame!"
He said the government was shortsighted in continuing its dependence on the two main exports--rice and sugar, believing the LOME agreement would last forever; and was neglectful of the tourism sector. As to its claims of transparency, Carberry suggested the government was instead "digging itself into a mire of secrecy."
In reply, Prime Minister Sam Hinds described the budget as "business-like and matter of fact... not couched in flowery dissertation" from a government not wishing to crow over its achievements. He read from the speeches of last year's opposition speakers including that of PNC leader Desmond Hoyte who spent a mere half hour at the debate. Hoyte had talked of "collapse everywhere" and could not understand the minister of finance's optimism of 1999 being a year of growth, Hinds read. Despite what he called "naturally occurring and contrived difficulties" 1999 had been a year of economic expansion "and what better could we have done than to promote the Honourable Minister [President Bharrat Jagdeo] to captain?"
Thump! Thump! Thump! the government's tables resounded.
As to a framework, Hinds turned to the PPP/Civic 1997 elections manifesto referring to human resource development and other worthy goals.
"Words! Words!" the opposition contended.
"We don't do things for fashion's sake...," the smartly-attired Hinds said, "the PPP/Civic has always been a sober, earnest ...set of people." The priorities of the budget were to create healthier people, more educated, more satisfied with their housing and sanitation, Hinds said, adding, "...many of the programmes for physical infrastructure will provide jobs."
Hinds refuted the charge that the consultation process had been futile. He said it was natural for everyone to want something but that this was not practical given the need to "aim for equality between revenues and expenditures."
Whilst he recalled the growth in public servants pay "from US$27 in 1990 to over US$100 today," Hinds reminded the Guyana Public Service Union of its written commitment to public service reform and voluntary separation; an issue where he said the government's views coincided with those of international agencies.
In response to Carberry's assertions that the government had done nothing to address the increasing price of oil and its impact on the economy, Hinds revealed that the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) had been in talks with the power company over the establishment of a 10-20 megawatt unit at the new GUYSUCO Skeldon estate scheduled to be operational in 2003. In the meantime, the Prime Minister said, Guyanese should consider a return to the conservation efforts of the 70's.
Hinds also described the proposed Beal satellite launch site as something all Guyanese should want as it would signal Guyana's willingness to welcome investment. He said that the large commissions Brazil received from its space programme were as a result of a US$20 million investment. The intangible benefits to the Guyanese economy would be manifold, he predicted.
Persico, in opening the debate, called the budget one "which blazes the trail of going no place" from a minister of finance "pitchforked into the position."
Persico reeled off all the proposals that the Guyana Trades Union Congress had submitted to the Ministry of Finance during the consultation process, including a minimum wage of $35,000; the increase of the tax threshold to $30,000; and public servants' salaries to be commensurate with the private sector. She then turned to education, lamenting the lack of resources to be spent on teachers and remarking that substandard work was being done on new schools.
"Mr Speaker why are we allowing the salt goods shop mentality to seep into such a significant area as educating the nation?" she asked.
Persico noted that even with the 26.6% increase some teachers' salaries would still be below the minimum wage of $19,000. She proposed that the minister of education, who she suggested has secretly booked a ticket to Botswana, should concentrate on renovating the existing schools instead of building new ones. Almost in the same breath, she said that teacher/student ratios should be reduced.
Fung-On, replying to Persico on behalf of the government, stated that her views were "clearly views of other people" namely the GTUC. It did not follow that because proposals were taken from different groups that they would be utilised, he said.
Fung-On veered a little from the subject when he warned the heckling opposition benches that the government would be taking a firm hand against street protests, perhaps recalling his unfortunate role in the public servants' strike.
By this time the heckling had become too much for Speaker of the House, Derek Jagan, who warned those members who did not want to hear the speeches to step outside into the lobby.
