Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has criticised Minister of Finance Winston Jordan for refusing to account for a total of $8.8B that was channelled to GuySuCo and the Guyana Rice Develop-ment Board (GRDB).
During the consideration of the budget estimates, which were approved early yesterday morning by the Committee of Supply, several opposition members questioned where in the estimates was the $3.8B that was used to bail out GuySuCo and $5B that was transferred to the GRDB.
The question was raised several times by opposition members but the minister did not address them. When the question was raised by the opposition members, Jordan reiterated several times, “I can only answer what is here and you cannot ask me a question about things that were said somewhere else.”
“What we just witnessed in the chamber is the worst act of lack of accountability that I have ever seen on the part of a Minister of Finance ever in this country,” Jagdeo said afterward.
Faced with the imminent shutdown of all of the sugar estates and factories due to a lack of finances, the new government agreed in June to bail out GuySuCo. In addition, it was also forced to give over $5B to the GRDB so that farmers could be paid for shipments of rice to Venezuela under the PetroCaribe agreement.
Jagdeo accused Jordan of hiding behind several rules of the National Assembly and refusing to deal with the questions posed to him by the opposition members.
“We asked him where the money came from and he refused to say where it came from. Did it come from the Consolidated Fund?
The Contingencies Fund? Did it come from anywhere else?” Jagdeo questioned.
He stated that the opposition believes the only reason that Jordan doesn’t want to account for the funds, which he said were transferred in the absence of the budget, is because they are doing “exactly what they accused (former Finance Minister) Ashni Singh of doing.” He said they understand that the money is located in the public debt and the Minister of Finance does not want to admit that to the nation because it would be that he has misled the House and the entire country into believing that the money was real money going to the GRDB to purchase rice.
Jagdeo strongly affirmed that while the Minister of Finance continues to refuse to answer questions, the opposition will not drop the issue. “We are going to cut the section of the tape where Jordan refused to answer and play it over and over again so people will see him refusing to answer those questions,” he stated.
