Budget cuts reappeared last night with the first chop for 2013 being a $1.25B provision for the controversial specialty hospital at Turkeyen.
The cut came as the National Assembly went through the estimates of the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Hospital.
Government zeroed in on the possibility of avoiding the cuts by pointing out that APNU MP Carl Greenidge’s motion for the cut published on Tuesday evening, failed to quality for admissibility in the House because the notice period was too short.
However, AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan pointed out that he had a motion submitted on Friday which had to have met the requirements and which not coincidentally included the specialty hospital. On this basis the cuts were effected following a vote of 33/32 in favour of the Opposition.
For a lengthy period, speakers on the Government’s side took to the floor to explain why it was that Greenidge’s motion should be disallowed. However, prior to this, those Government speakers were making attempts to convince the Opposition to have a change of heart towards the specialty hospital project.
Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh explained to the Opposition that their concerns about the monies voted last year for site preparation were not improper and that there was transparency. “While the $150M was budgeted last year it was under ‘specific’, meaning that it is foreign funded,” said the Minister. He said that while the EXIM Bank of India provided the contract for the design, construction and equipping of the hospital, the money for site preparation came from the Government’s component of the funding. “There is no mystery surrounding this matter,” Dr. Singh said.
As the Chairman of the Committee of Supply – Speaker Raphael Trotman – was about to introduce Greenidge’s motion for the cut, when Dr. Singh took to the floor again and said that there might not have been sufficient notice of the motion for it to be admissible.
MP and Presidential Advisor Gail Teixeira said that according to the Standing Orders a clear day was needed for a motion to be accepted. Following a brief commiseration with Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs, Trotman said that he ruled in favour of the Government on Greenidge’s motion – that is to say that it had not met the time requirement.
Meanwhile, just prior to this, Opposition members were speaking for lengthy periods in the hope that the time would elapse enough to make the motion allowable for consideration. But the Speaker stopped them in their tracks saying that he had ‘stopped time’ for the purpose of precluding the Opposition’s strategy.
Similarly, sensing the Opposition’s steadfastness on its intention to vote down the allocation for the specialty hospital, Minister of Health Dr. Bheri Ramsaran waxed on longer than was necessary about the virtues of the institution and why it should be supported. Persons heckled that he was afraid to sit down for fear of the cuts.
“…I stand here to explain the process and to say that this project is needed and in spite of the pronouncements, we need to seriously and sympathetically consider what the $1.2 billion dollars [will do for the project],” he said. “We need not to look at me as the messenger but at the message,” he said. The Minister said that Surendra Engineering received $746 million while local contractor G. Bovell received $52 million. He said that G. Bovell encountered money problems with his creditors and as a result fell behind on the works it was supposed to execute on the site. He said that because of these setbacks, the Surendra part of the works has been delayed also.
In reacting to the Minister’s pleas, APNU’s Greenidge said that the Minister was brazen enough to refer to another member of the Opposition as impertinent. Pointing to the Government’s lack of dialogue and stance on the Opposition’s position, he notified the Speaker of his intention to put his motion before the House. “There is a proposal for the amount [of $1.250 billion] to be amended to $1,” he said.
AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan stressed the point that Fedders Lloyd is the company that has built specialty hospitals around the world, unlike Surendra Engineering Company. Fedders Lloyd had complained bitterly about being sidelined in favour of Surendra. It has since abandoned its attempt to have the contract rescinded.
Member of Parliament for the AFC Moses Nagamootoo said that the money from India is a loan that has to be paid back and because of this it requires fiscal responsibility. He said that the party was in a state of doubt regarding the project. “Our concern is about the people’s purse…we cannot vote any money for it until we have some answers,” said Nagamootoo.
AFC Member of Parliament Valerie Garrido-Lowe asked whether the hospital will be open to the public. To this, the Minister said yes, but there must be a cost recovery system worked out.
At the end of the sitting last evening, Minister Ramsaran reacted to the cut saying the Opposition chose not to listen to the reasoning of the Government on the spending for the hospital. “There is no confusion…there is mischief and there is bitterness. They want to shut down this programme because it is transformational,” he said. “We will continue soldiering on…of course there is the issue of what happens now with the investment. I have to be advised by the Ministry of Finance and the legal arm of the Government,” he said.
