The Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday led a picketing exercise outside the headquarters of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) over the agency’s recent decision to loan $3 billion to the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), saying it believes the money is intended for election campaigning.
“GGMC money for PPP campaign,” and “Pay the workers, don’t thief the people money,” were among the messages shouted by the dozen persons who protested outside the GGMC’s Brickdam headquarters yesterday.
The protest came just days after the signing of the agreement for the loan to the CH&PA to be used for the development of the housing sector. The legality of the agreement has been questioned although the GGMC has sought to defend the arrangement as permissible under the GGMC Act.
“They could not pay the workers just two weeks ago, had the workers in the sun and rain, protesting for what is rightfully theirs, a livable wage, but they are anxious to transfer three billion dollars,” protestor Nielson McKenzie said yesterday.
He was referring to the dispute between workers and the GGMC’s management over wage increases, which has seen workers engaged in strike action.
McKenzie, who is an AFC member, said the $3 billion should have been transferred to the Consolidated Fund. He said the AFC has advocated along this line in and out of parliament but to no avail.
McKenzie also said agencies like GGMC have secret bank accounts that are used by government ministries and this should not be so.
He suggested that the loan is an attempt by the PPP/C to use the money for electioneering during the upcoming campaign and he charged that it shows the ruling party is conscious that a change is to come after the May 11 poll date.
“The government continues to splurge money across the hinterland and other areas to influence the outcome of the general elections. We are fully aware that this has been the modus operandi for a long time and they do not intend to change,” McKenzie said, while declaring, “The government will be the destruction of GGMC.”
Columnist Freddie Kissoon, who was among the protestors, said the loan represents “most definitely” a campaign fund.
“And we are asserting that it is illegal and immoral and it should be stopped,” Kissoon said, while also calling for the money to be placed in the Consolidated Fund.
“What we have here is NICIL all over again; in which tax-payers money was siphoned off to NICIL to build a Marriott Hotel for the friends of Bharrat Jagdeo and company. We know, we believe, we have evidence—and it’s a matter of days before it will be tested in the court—that this money cannot be transferred to the Ministry of Housing directly, it has to come from the Consolidated Fund. And because there is no parliament they cannot go to the Consolidated Fund and so they have resorted to an illegal manoeuvre,” Kissoon said.
Government has been frequently accused of using the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Ltd (NICIL) to retain and use funds meant for the Consolidated Fund, in clear violation of the Constitution.
Another protester, Ivan Bentham, also called the loan disturbing and he saw it as another ploy to get campaign money, while adding that the AFC is against it completely. Bentham said he is hoping the PPP/C will give a definitive statement.
So far, in the face of criticism, the GGMC has argued that the disbursement is permissible under the GGMC Act, which allows it to “out of its funds and resources, make loans in accordance with the provisions of this Act in that behalf, in the performance of its functions.”
It, however, has not been made explicit how the housing development is connected to the GGMC’s exercise of its functions and analysts argue that there is nothing in the Act that reasonably permits the loan.
The GGMC also said it saw the loan as an investment and it cited the rate of interest of 5% on the loan as being 3.2% higher than commercial banks, while disregarding the fact that the additional interest expense would have to be carried by taxpayers.
