The Alliance For Change (AFC) is to meet with President Donald Ramotar tomorrow to further discuss issues related to the national budget and is optimistic that the two parties would be able to reach a compromise on issues such as the reduction in VAT and increases in public sector wages.
“We still have hope,” said Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan, speaking at a press conference yesterday held at the Sidewalk Cafe. “We are saying that we would like to negotiate with [President Ramotar] the decrease of the VAT, so that all the workers and consumers of Guyana could benefit,” he said. Ramjattan would be engaging the President on behalf of the AFC tomorrow.
He said that this was a call made by a majority of the Guyanese and which was in the campaign manifestos of the political parties including the PPP. “So we in the AFC as part of our list of priorities have indicated that it drops to 12 percent (from 16 percent). We would like to see that and that is what we will go there for. We also want to see an increase (in wages) and we are asking for 20 percent increase. If it does not happen and we get an 8 or 10, fine, we will work along with that. We would want to see a rationale of why it can’t go higher,” he said.
“We would also want to see better governance in Parliament and a number of other things, which we will highlight to him as part of our list of priorities,” he said.
“We believe that if you want to work in this new dispensation there must be magnanimity on the part of all –APNU, AFC and PPP/C. I feel that there can be some concessions by virtue of with arguments and good rationalization,” he said. He added that the AFC would be willing to concede positions also as they strive to arrive at agreements.
Questioned about the Government’s concerns over talks between the AFC and APNU, Ramjattan said that Government need not concern itself about this. “When the AFC is talking with APNU it is talking about that which we want in the national interest and if when we talk in the national interest, the PPP must understand that that is going to be beneficial for their constituents,” he said. He said that Government’s apprehension does not have any foundation. “We are not going to do anything to damage the present regime or that would be untoward to what the new dispensation is,” he said. “We just want the PPP/C party to understand that it has to live with this new dispensation. We have tried to talk to them on very many issues and it looks like now we are going to talk,” he said.
Ramjattan accused Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon of playing brinkmanship and saying that nothing will happen.
The AFC had earlier urged President Ramotar to summon the meeting under the Tripartite Arrangement to examine the 2012 Budget. “The Budget is of critical importance and we urge the Government to treat this matter as ‘top-most’ priority,” the AFC said.
