Parliamentary sketch
The dull but dogged Minister Kowlessar
Stabroek News
March 30, 2004
Finance Minister Saisnarine Kowlessar takes a water break during his budget speech yesterday.
Did you know that Upper Greenheart Street in Linden and the roads in the Swamp section of Rose Hall are to be rehabilitated under the Urban Development Programme? Well, now you do, as well as that yesterday's Budget Speech was impossibly wooden and bogged down in details.
No village was too small for Minister Saisnarine Kowlessar in his near three-hour speech, as he flitted across the country like Minister Harriperaud Nokta on an interior jaunt. Columbia, Grove, Orinduik, Wismar, Kwakwani; it was as if he were reading from the Gazetteer.
Kowlessar resembles one of those batsmen with little talent but dogged technique who cares not one iota for pleasing the crowd. Yesterday must have brought back memories of Darren Ganga's first Test century against Australia in 2003, in that by the end you acknowledged the feat but resented the time it had taken. Poke, poke, poke. But Kowlessar should not take all the blame. There was no one in the stands.
Yesterday he slipped away early from his office to spend a few hours at the hotel fully expecting to engage in some political give and take. Instead the PNCR MPs stood outside in those bibs that look like they are off to some Lobster/Spare Ribs Fest, and shouted, "We don't want no death squad budget". There were no appropriations under the category "death squad", but Kowlessar stressed the need to design new approaches and methods to meet the changing face of crime.
That was a mildly exciting moment and whenever he took his water breaks, ably assisted by Minister Shaik Baksh who dutifully replenished his glass after it had been thoroughly drained. (It is truly remarkable how much water this man can drink and most importantly his PSIC or "per second intake capacity". DDL or Banks should be sponsoring him. That is the kind of private/public sector synergy the country needs.)
Other than that the minister showed a perverse propensity for the "un-" part of the dictionary. The year 2003 was described as being full of unforeseen and unforgettable challenges, in part the legacy of the unstable climate created by the unwillingness of the ungovernable PNCR to play fair, coupled with unfavorable weather conditions for the sugar industry. It had been a hard few years was the message, what with 9/11, SARS, the Iraq War, oil hikes....butterflies flapping in the Amazon... these were the global forces conspiring against the PPP, we were told.
But wait, Kowlessar declared, all the pieces were in place (after 12 years), for Guyana to make a quantum leap. "An exciting period lies ahead," he declared water break gulp, gulp).
Exciting might not have been the best word, judging by what came next. Kowlessar settled into the crease with a stodgy defence of the government's policy, backed up by almost endless statistics. Number of house lots given out, schools rehabilitated, a 41% increase in chickens, bauxite exports reach US$44.6M, 500 kms of pipes laid in the water sector (prompting another water break gulp, gulp). On he plodded into his second hour, the "hostile media" sagging, stretching, yawning.
His announcement of 74 kms of roads repaired between Moleson Creek and Timbuktu drew the first of many approving thumps from his colleagues, led in unison by Comrade Nokta and Gail Teixeira's paper weights. Thump, thump for Runway Two at the airport; thump, thump for repairs to MV Barima. Thump, thump for bagasse-generated power, even a soft loan for drainage and irrigation. Thump, thump for a collapsed culvert in West Watooka. The biggest thump was for the recent visit of a cruise ship and sounded a bit like passengers trapped in the Titanic.
It was all a little sad because who exactly were they applauding for? The disinterested (and hostile) press? The cameras? Or the empty seats of the opposition? Or for Ravi Dev, Sheila Holder and Shirley Melville stuck out there on their own as if at some country fete awkwardly waiting for someone to open the dance floor?
Or for Kowlessar? After all this was his annual moment to be dull and he certainly lived up to it. Every acronym he could conjure up, he brought out of that briefcase: there was GEAP LEAP, BEAMS, PEIP SSRP, PFSSC, WUA, GTA, THAG, ASCYUDA, PLUS, GBET GRA, FIU, PRSP and then for good measure some vegetables: bora, boulanger, pineapple, pepper and cucumber (water break gulp, gulp).
But it was not all empty, rehashed rhetoric. How pleased we were to hear that there was an initiative to help with poverty alleviation. Reporters woke up and hunted for their pens. Could it be the long awaited increase in the income tax threshold? No, something to do with the NIS: the working poor would now pay more in contributions "to strengthen the social safety net". It comes into effect on Thursday.
Now who does he think he's fooling?