Prime Minister Sam Hinds is appealing to the opposition to rethink its position as regards the allocations in the budget for the Guyana Power and Light, while Attorney General Anil Nandlall believes the opposition is unjustified in its cuts to NCN and GINA.
They were both speaking at a PPP/C press conference held at Freedom House yesterday.
In the 2013 budget GINA was slated to receive $135.8 million, while NCN was to receive $81.3 million to supplement their operations.
These were cut to one dollar each. In addition, some $5.2 billion out of an allocation of $10.2 billion was cut for the Guyana Power and Light.
Hinds said that rather than being a liability as the opposition puts it, GPL is deserving of the allocations in the budget. “There is a lot of money running an electricity company that serves over 90 per cent of the country,” he said.
He said that GPL over the years has forgone revenues by keeping tariffs down in the order of $27 billion and this is money that the company needs. “The only way to get it is from the budget. Alternatively it is customers who will have to pay this,” he said.
He said the government as owner of the company is called upon to finance the improvements and rehabilitation of the company.
He spoke of peak demand rising from 30 megawatts to about 80 megawatts.
Hinds said government can show how it was that the allocations for GPL over the years have been properly accounted for.
“The money is being utilised properly… We are trying to meet the growing demand and also utilising some gains in improving the quality of service,” he said.
“I am making a call for them to reconsider their actions with respect to the budget cuts on GPL,” he said. He said that oil is about 70 per cent of the cost of providing electricity.
He said government is examining strategies to maximise the use of electricity in the short term.
He spoke of Amaila in the long term but expressed concerns about the threats to cut the allocation in the budget for this project.
Meanwhile, Nandlall said that the cutting of the allocation for the specialty hospital has dealt a blow to the people of Guyana and is denying them the services that the facility will eventually provide.
“Perhaps, the importance of this facility has not dawned on them,” he said, referring here to members of Parliament who may be able to afford such medical services. But he said to the poor people of Guyana this hospital will provide the opportunity that they might never have. It is from that perspective that the administration finds the cut to this facility as undecipherable on the grounds of logic, common sense and even politics,” he said.
He said the cut to the allocation puts the government in a legal dilemma since it cannot meet its obligations to the contractor.
Nandlall pointed out that during the consideration of the estimates, not a single question was put by the opposition for the allocations for NCN and GINA.
He said that the services GINA provides for the government are not luxuries but entitlements of the people of the country to receive government’s information.
“Because they are entitled… to know what it is their government is doing with their taxpayers’ money and whether the government is fulfilling the promises made in its manifesto.”
He said government is entitled to publish its views just as how the private media houses are entitled to publish theirs.
Nandlall said that last year, NCN’s expenditure outstripped its income and made a case for the need for the government subsidies to the company.
He said the opposition could have utilised the facility of the Committee of Supply to ask questions and to seek clarification with a view to approving allocations.
“We on the government side would have been prepared to answer those questions…,” he said.
