‘The President wants a Mercedes lifestyle in a jackass cart economy’ – Ramjattan
The AFC has added its voice to opposition to a proposed law to ensure special benefits and amenities to the president after he leaves office. “It is scandalous,” AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan told Stabroek News yesterday, saying the government-sponsored Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Bill 2009 is “untimely in a financial crisis.”
According to him, the head of state is seeking to statutorise benefits for a period of time after 2011, when his last term ends. The bill, which seeks to put into law benefits and other facilities to be enjoyed by every former President, has been condemned by the main opposition PNCR, which placed a full-page advertisement in the national newspapers railing against what it called an attempt at securing “luxurious living at the expense of taxpayers” through legislation. The PPP/C administration has defended the bill, saying that it is seeking to put in place statutory provisions for amenities that are already being provided by custom, practice or cabinet decisions, in keeping with calls for transparency and accountability. It also noted that the requisite benefits are currently being enjoyed by the Office of the Leader of the Opposition-PNCR leader Robert Corbin.
Ramjattan, however, dubbed the introduction of the bill as “crazy” in the current economic climate. “The President wants a Mercedes lifestyle,” he said, “in a jackass cart economy.” He added that while a president must have some dignity after leaving office, what President Jagdeo is seeking demonstrates greed. “It is avarice!” he said, “And then to come to seek to statutorise it!” Further, he said Jagdeo is a young man and should seek to put his qualification as an economist to work. In contrast, he said in the case of someone like late former President Arthur Chung, it would have been necessary to ensure that he got an optimum sum to take care of him.
He was particularly critical of the PPP/C for introducing the bill while constantly proclaiming that it is a working class government. “Why didn’t Jagan do it? He questioned, “Why didn’t the PPP put it into law in 1993?”
Meanwhile, Ramjattan said he was glad the PNCR addressed the issue by following the AFC’s example, but noting the administration’s charge that the Office of the Leader of the Opposition already enjoys a number of amenities, he noted that like with the scrutineering funds, both the PPP/C and the PNCR know “how to cut the pie.”
The bill’s explanatory memorandum says having regard to the services rendered by former Presidents and the dignity attached to their office, “it is considered necessary” to extend to them “certain amenities and benefits” during the remainder of their lifetime. Among the benefits proposed by the bill is payment of utilities at the place of residence in Guyana; the services of personal and household staff, including an attendant and a gardener; services of clerical and technical staff, if requested; free medical attendance and medical treatment or reimbursement of medical expenses incurred by him for the medical attendance or treatment of himself and the dependant members of his family; full-time personal security and services of the Presidential Guard Service at the place of residence; the provision of motor vehicles owned and maintained by the State; toll free road transportation in Guyana; an annual vacation allowance equivalent to the cost of two first class return airfares provided on the same basis as that granted to serving members of the judiciary; and a tax exemption status identical to that enjoyed by a serving President.
In a statement on behalf of the Office of the President, Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon said the public posture by the PNCR reflected its double-standards and duplicity. Luncheon explained that the bill is in response to calls for commitment to transparency and accountability and seeks to make conditions facilities and benefits already enjoyed or that were being enjoyed by former Presidents into law. “So the efforts by the PNCR to address the move to make these benefits and their provisions statutory bound and no longer at discretion of the cabinet are indeed reflective of their double standard,” he noted. “They have called for and championed transparency and the administration in its action on this Bill to provide for transparency in the provision of goods and services to former Presidents has suddenly become the basis for an attack by the PNCR.”
Luncheon added that what the bill confers as benefits and facilities to the former Presidents are similar to what is already being provided in other jurisdictions to their former heads. Further, when compared with the size of those benefits, it noted, what is being proposed is minimal.
A full-page paid advertisement by the PNCR in both the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News declared that Jagdeo has taken the presidency to a new low. “By bringing this bill, while forcing miserly wages and salary increases on impoverished Guyanese workers, Jagdeo is ensuring that after he is no longer President he is guaranteed salary increases in the future by organising to pay himself seven eights of the salary of the serving president,” the party said, pointing out that the President is after a future presidential pension much greater than his current salary. “The People’s National Congress Reform believes that there should be benefits and other facilities to former Presidents. However such benefits should be specific and not open ended and self-serving,” the party added. It said too that in the long history of the PNC government, it never passed any law to serve the personal interest of any of its Presidents.
