The Private Sector Commission is seeking an audience with Leader of the Opposition David Granger, President Donald Ramotar and the PPP/C with regards to the $21 billion in cuts made to the $192.8 billion 2012 national budget since it is of the view those cuts will ultimately affect the private sector.
Speaking to this newspaper, a source close to the leadership of the PSC said that the cuts will affect the private sector. “We had a meeting on Friday and the PSC is very concerned about the cuts and the effect that they will have on the growth and development of the private sector.”
He identified the one laptop per family programme as one of those that would directly affect the fortunes of the private sector were it to be cut, as it has been. Some $170 million was axed from the one laptop programme and $18.39 billion cut from the LCDS programme, whose allocation catered for the Government’s portion of the equity investment in the Amaila Falls Hydro project in the amount of about $16.4 billion. The opposition has argued that the $18.39 billion in the budget is money that the government is yet to receive under the Norway forest deal. In the previous year’s budget a large sum had also been catered for from the Norway deal but was not received.
“We are extremely unhappy about some of them,” he said. “We asked the Leader of the Opposition to meet with us so that we could get an understanding of what he has done and for him to benefit from our understanding the impact of the cuts on the private sector. We hope to get a response from him,” he said.
“We have also written to President Ramotar to meet with him,” he said. “Our biggest concern is the LCDS and the second biggest one is the cuts made from the one laptop per family project. We believe if the latter programme was stopped it would affect human resources,” the source said.
Further, he said that if the Opposition have issues with the way the National Communications Network and the Government Information Agency are run then they should have talks about it and not move to shut them down.
The person is of the view that the Multi-stakeholder Forum which had been activated after the two massacres in Lugisnan and Bartica in 2008 could play a role in bringing together opinions on the current issues as they are being played out in the Tenth Parliament.
“Civil Society could also put pressure on the Government and the Opposition to represent the interest of the private sector,” said the PSC source yesterday.
Last week Wednesday the Opposition made cuts to allocations for the National Communications Network (NCN) ($81.2 million cut), Government Information Agency (GINA) ($130.4), the Guyana Elections Commission ($527 million), Office of the President ($150 million, $345 million), and Office of the Prime Minister ($6 billion).
And on Thursday the Opposition cut all but one dollar for an allocation of $18.39 billion covering a number of low carbon projects under the Ministry of Finance, namely, the Amaila Falls Project ($16.4 billion), Amerindian land titling ($202.1 million), Amerindian development fund ($205 million), small and micro enterprise ($512.5 million), climate adaptation project – Cunha Canal $410 million and institutional strengthening of agencies connected to the LCDS $615 million.
The Opposition ‘scissors’ also snipped a total of $224.4 million under the Ministry of Finance covering subsidies and contributions to local organisations. These were the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) with $20 million, the State Planning Secretariat with $105 million and Ethnic Relations Commission with $99.4 million. All of these allocations were reduced to $1 each.
