Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh yesterday argued that there was much in the 2009 budget for Guyanese and chided opposition MPs for wasting a valuable opportunity to properly scrutinize and discuss the document.
In his energetic closing address to this year’s debate, Singh told the National Assembly that while several of the presentations appeared to be well articulated, many of them failed to raise serious issues and contained baseless arguments.
Nevertheless during his closing speech, Singh responded to many of the concerns highlighted by the Opposition MPs, and dedicated a great part of his speech to rebuffing arguments raised by the AFC Leader Raphael Trotman and the party’s Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan.
The Finance Minister, who delivered his speech immediately after Trotman had concluded his, described Trotman’s speech as being “unfortunate” since he said it sought to portray the country as a place of all doom. The AFC Leader during his presentation had quoted extensively from a song titled `Nothing to Smile About’ – a song in which the Jamaican reggae group Morgan Heritage presents a gloomy description of life in Jamaica’s ghetto. Singh said that all could see that the country had made much progress under the PPP/C administration.
According to the Minister, the country has seen a 60 percent reduction in its external debt since 1992, which dropped from US$2.1B in 1992 to the US$833M at which is presently stands. He also said that the country has seen its gross international reserves increase from US$191.1M in 1992 to its present figure of US$355M.
The Finance Minister responded to criticisms that there was nothing in the budget for the people of Guyana. According to him, there is much for Guyanese persons to look forward to in this year’s budget. He identified the $710 million that has been set aside for the school feeding programme as an example of an initiative that would help suffering children all across the nation and consequently ease burdens on parents. He also highlighted the huge sums dedicated to drainage and irrigation as projects geared towards helping all Guyanese particularly farmers who were badly affected by flooding in the country.
Consultations on the Budget
Singh refuted arguments that there had been no consultation before the budget was prepared. He said that the budget was a consolidation of national sector policies and had been compiled based on discussions held with various stakeholders throughout the year. He said that he did not believe in having token “consultations” as would be the case if he just called people into his office a few weeks before he was ready.
The Finance Minister also defended the calculated fiscal deficit for last year which was given at 7.9 percent and the projected amount of 6.5 percent for this year. He said that this number was calculated by a standard international method that has been in existence for a long time. The manner in which the fiscal deficit was calculated was one of the main concerns raised by PNCR-1G MP Winston Murray.
He said that over the years the government has been able to reduce its fiscal deficit, which in time should make the country eligible for assistance under the Millennium Challenge Account.
Stimulus package
Singh also responded to the critics who were calling for a stimulus package to be implemented and said that those persons were being carried away with what was happening in the USA.
He said that while the budget does not have anything called a “stimulus package” the way funds have been distributed this year, serve to perform the same function as the “stimulus package” that some of the Opposition MPs were calling for.
Responding to the low rating Guyana received on the Index of Economic Freedom, Singh said that the government was criticised for the manner in which it constantly increased its social spending which contributing to its fiscal deficit, but said that the government would not change this policy since these social programmes benefited people in the country.
In that same report, Guyana was criticised for its oversized government, a point that Khemraj Ramjattan had elaborated on during his presentation on Monday. Ramjattan suggested that at least eight ministries should be closed.
Ramjattan stated that if the government reduced the number of ministries, it would save billions of dollars which would be better used elsewhere. The minister accused Ramjattan of “mumbo jumbo arithmetic” since the MP clearly could not prove this, even after he had been challenged by Prime Minister Samuel Hinds to do so.
Last Monday, Singh unveiled a budget of $128.9 billion, the largest in the country’s history.
