Slamming the government for not doing enough to improve the lives of Guyanese, PNCR Parliamentarian Basil Williams then joined with the rest of his party in walking out of the House as Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy rose to speak.
The PNC MPs walked out “to remind the nation and the PPP that we have not abandoned our quest to have an international inquiry into the atrocities committed by the phantom squad, (drug trafficker) Roger Khan and the involvement of ministers of the government including Mr Ramsammy whose name was mentioned as one of those persons who allowed the laptop to be brought into this country,” party leader, Robert Corbin said. “We wanted to remind the nation that those issues are still outstanding so we must not be deluded with the present budget debate that the PNC has dropped its quest for that inquiry and to have closure to all those issues mentioned in the dossier by the joint opposition parties,” he told Stabroek News when approached regarding the party’s walkout.
Ramsammy, outlining in his speech, the state of the health sector under the PNC administration, said he wished they had stayed and listened to “what they did”. As he wrapped up his presentation, the PNCR parliamentarians re-entered the chamber.
In the third day of the 2010 Budget debate, Williams, the shadow Labour Minister, zeroed in on the unemployment rate stating that job creation is the sole responsibility of government. “It’s disgusting coming to this honourable House to hear, year after year, [and] instead of any genuine attempts being made to reduce this unemployment rate…, we keep hearing PNC did this and this happened in 1992 and all of that,” he declared. Urging the government to “wake up and smell the coffee”, he asserted that the hallmark of this administration has been high unemployment. Williams said it is common knowledge that even university graduates cannot obtain a job and according to him, 40,000 to 45,000 persons are jobless right now. “It is your duty to find and create jobs for the Guyanese people and you have failed to do so,” he chided Minister of Labour, Manzoor Nadir, who he noted, had stated in his presentation that the government cannot find jobs for everyone.
Williams recommended that Nadir recognize the responsibility and adopt as a number one priority, measures to increase jobs and decrease the unacceptable high rate of unemployment in Guyana.
Earlier, he had declared that the budget is not doing the “little things” like improving the quality of life of the masses, creating new jobs and opportunities for youths and promoting research and development and science. The budget seems to miss these but they impact greatly any further progress in the society, he argued. “All that exists from the government’s efforts is brick and mortar but this does not equal progress.”
Williams, in noting that it is not enough to say that it is the biggest budget since the biggest budget has financing implications, pointed out that Guyana still maintains the highest tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio in the western hemisphere. He asserted that the welfare of Guyanese workers is a low priority for government stating that over last ten years, the administration deliberately kept workers wages low despite spiralling inflation.
He noted that the wages increase in 2010 is projected to be $2 billion, lower than last year’s $2.3 billion, and this means that “there will be no increase in the real income of the public servants of this country” for this year. The parliamentarian charged that workers and public servants have been made to “mark time” by the government and they have never had any real wages given to them by the administration and a living wage is what the people deserve. In this light, he advocated the introduction of a wages policy for the country.
Meantime, regarding the Board of Industrial Training, Williams noted the increase in budgetary allocation to $120 million and stated that the impact is not being seen. “He’s [Nadir] training but he’s only producing a mouse,” he stated. He called for the subvention to be restored to Critchlow Labour College.
The parliamentarian also accused the ministry of failing in its duty to resolve conflicts and bring harmony to the trade union movement. He mentioned Russian company, RUSAL “riding roughshod over the bauxite workers”, stating that there is a need to regulate foreign companies. In addition, referring to government imposing wages on public servants after the failure of negotiations, Williams declared that an industrial court is necessary. He said that every year the budget is touted as “bigger and better” but the results are not seen.
Meantime, in his presentation, Ramsammy said that he would tell the “real” story of the health sector. He criticized the PNC’s record regarding health when it was in office. Today, he stated, health for all “is not an impossible holy grail”. The minister declared that an examination of what the sector has achieved and a comparison with others at the same level of investment would show that the Guyanese health care workers and the health care system can be proud of their achievements.
Referring to comments made by PNCR Parliamentarian, Dr George Norton during his presentation, Ramsammy said that the whole story must be told and “no one should condemn his or her colleagues and fellow health workers based on only a part of the story or based on what he or she reads in the newspapers”. The passionate, quivering minister said the handful of adverse events that people complain about must not be used to misrepresent what is done in the health sector and this is what Dr Norton did. Noting that the health sector has made tremendous strides in the past two decades, Ramsammy acknowledged that not all the problems have been eliminated. “There are deficiencies and we must acknowledge that sometimes we make mistakes,” he stated.
In this light, he noted that maternal and infant mortality rates are still too high, waiting time can be significantly reduced, accountability of services needs further improvement, services could be further improved through greater client friendliness, while more reliable supplies of medicines and medical supplies have been insured, health facilities sometimes do not provide the medicines they prescribe, the ambulance service can be further improved, a better job can be done of documentation in the sector and the sector’s human resource capacity is not what it ought to be.
But, he noted there have been improvements and he is not “shy” in telling the story of the sector. Life expectancy is rising, he stated, and is projected to be 72 years in 2012 and 75 years in 2015. Tremendous strides have been made towards reducing maternal deaths to a minimum and last year Guyana’s maternal mortality was 9.8 per 10,000 births with there being 16,000 women delivering babies safely, the minister stated. “We are proud of the work we do, and we are embarrassed by some of our lapses. We will continue to ensure that we provide our people with fewer and fewer cases where they see us in a bad light,” he said. He noted that last year, the infant mortality rate was about 15 per 1,000 births and while this is not good enough, it has been reduced from the rate of 100 deaths per 1,000 infants in the 1980s.
Ramsammy stated that immunization continues to be a major achievement of the health sector and regarding chronic diseases said that more than 90% of all chronic disease patients are diagnosed and treated in the public health sector. He stated that more than 85% of illnesses result from behaviour declaring that Guyanese eat too much of the wrong food.
This year, Ramsammy, said, a new study on the micronutrients status of the population will be done and a salt standard and a trans-fat standard for food in Guyana, imported, locally manufactured and for restaurants, will be introduced. The ministry will also be partnering with manufacturers and suppliers of alcohol products to stop alcohol abuse.
In the health sector today, medical personnel have increased and there is better physical infrastructure, Ramsammy declared. “A healthy health budget is like adopting a healthy lifestyle,” he said.
