A charge by the Guyana Human Rights Association on Friday that the PPP/C appears to be in denial over the November 28, 2011 elections results attracted the ire yesterday of both the Office of the President and the ruling party.
GHRA had said that the party should see the recent opposition-led budget cuts in Parliament as a wake-up call to engage more constructively.
In a statement on “critical issues”, the human rights body said that the recent budget exercise was the first expression in Parliament of the division of power as a result of the general elections.
In a statement yesterday, the Office of the President said it “… has noted GHRA’s contention that the design of the opposition was to approve cuts in the budget that were cosmetic and without the intended effect to put workers out of their jobs and disrupt the developmental programmes of the PPP/C government, [however this] flies in the face of the defence of the cuts put forward publicly by the opposition political parties.
“It is based on the cuts and the defence of the cuts by the opposition that the PPP/C Administration has taken the case to Guyanese, to stakeholders, and particularly to the affected Amerindian communities. Faced with the obvious, the PPP/C Administra-tion could not have come to any other conclusion. “It is the Office of the President’s position that in the absence of a categorical statement by the opposition parliamentary alliance, APNU and AFC that their cuts were cosmetic and intended to be without any effect, the contention of the GHRA must be rejected,” the OP statement said.
Freedom House in its statement said the PPP/C was appalled by the GHRA statement on the budget cuts.
“Rather than empathizing with the Guyanese public anger at the cuts, the GHRA in a major cover up on behalf of APNU/AFC has sought to justify such actions and have attacked those who have highlighted and commented on these most draconian actions of the opposition…
“The PPP/C has no apology for representing the interest and welfare of all Guyanese, especially Amerindians, women, children and young people who have in all regions been affected by these unjustified and unwarranted budget cuts that have led to the slowing or cessation of government goods and services.”
The statement then listed the series of projects it said will be affected by the budget cuts and sought to argue that this was an attack on the human rights of the people who would be affected.
“Another example of a gross violation of human rights is the slashing of the Guyana Power and Light Company subsidy by $1 billion as the entire $6 billion was supposed to be injected into GPL to ensure it does not raise its rates and tariffs because the PPP/C GoG recognized that the price of fuel internationally has been on the rise and the utility service needs fuel to run its operations. “If GPL is to continue to provide a reliable service, then the power company by pure economic pressure will be forced to raise its tariffs by around 25% – 30%. Now 160,000 customers of GPL or 160,000 families from all persuasions will be affected by any reduction to that assistance package, which is a human rights issue.”
Reacting to a contention in the statement that the PPP/C had been misleading Amerindians on the budget cuts, Freedom House said: “Even further, the Guyana Human Rights Association finds it abominable that the PPP/C government has been going into not only Amerindian communities but all communities across Guyana to explain to the people that it had presented to them a manifesto in the lead up to the November 28, 2011 elections, where they were promised certain programmes and that it has presented to the national assembly a budget that contains provisions for these things to be accomplished but it is no longer in a position to deliver these goods and services to the people because the opposition parties have cut off funding for these programmes.
“This basic conversation to account to the people which is integral in any democracy, the very same body which would like to have people believe that it is the vanguard of defending democracy and freedoms is now trying to deny the PPP/C and the PPP/C government such opportunities.
“It is also important to note that the budget cuts endanger hundreds and perhaps thousands of jobs of people of all ethnicity and political persuasion which is a human rights issue. In fact, any human rights organization in the world would take a position that supports the workers but alas it appears that in Guyana we have a human rights body that supports the opposite and adopts an anti-workers position.”
