As she alleged wanton dismissal of contract workers, Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira yesterday put government on notice that during next week’s consideration of the estimates of the 2016 Budget it will be grilled on the current number of contract employees.
“You increased the contract workers by 1000, well yuh got some explaining to do in the estimates, I can tell you duh,” Teixeira warned during her contribution to the 2016 Budget debate.
The 1,000 mentioned by PPP/C MP Teixeira appeared to be a reference to a figure that the accounting firm Ram and McRae developed from its analysis of the budget.
In rebuttal, Telecommunications and Tourism Minister Cathy Hughes defended her government’s termination of contract employees saying that the government reserves the right to end contracts if they are not getting value for money. “There is a lot of talk about retribution and revenge. I want us to remember that it is an important word called scam, what Guyanese were faced with in the last 23 years When we talk about contracts not being renewed I think this government has absolutely every right to take that position,” Hughes posited.
Observers say while the APNU+AFC government has fired a number of contract employees it has also hired a large number despite having stated in the past that it was against this practice. The grounds for the hiring of these contract employees are likely to be questioned.
Hughes went on to include infrastructural contracts such as the construction of the Kato Secondary School which has seen over $1B spent and is still not completed as examples of problems under the previous PPP/C government.
Teixeira said that since taking office the current administration has dismissed many contract workers who gained employment under her government because of the belief that they were aligned with her PPP/C.
To this end, she is calling on the government to set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the effects of the dismissals, undertaken in a manner she compared to a bulldozer in a China shop. “Since the government likes COIs, you know you love that, you love that, appoint another one to analyse and assess the cost, to this country, the cost of X number of people losing their jobs in the private sector and fix it…you have a fetish for COIs” she said.
“Most of the persons who got terminated did not need to be terminated it was done willy-nilly. I got terminated and I did not need to be terminated because I was a president’s lieutenant and when the president changed you automatically don’t have a job. I did not need a letter of dismissal from (Minister of State) Mr. (Joseph) Harmon…I have never been dismissed in my life,” she added.
Government’s Chief Whip Amna Ally interjected to her laments “We had to do it, yes we can’t maintain you.”
TIN
Teixeira also took aim at government’s proposed measures to have persons submit their tax returns before obtaining compliance from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). She said that not only was it a time consuming process but it deters prospective small business entrepreneurs from investing. “How are you helping small entrepreneurs when you are creating bureaucracies?” she questioned.
“I hear of all this compliance you have to get with GRA. Why? And you have a TIN? Everybody has a TIN (Taxpayer Identification Number), a huckster, cleaner, taxi driver everybody has to have a TIN. Therefore GRA has to know who is paying their taxes. Why you have to do that now… time lost, time lost, you are reversing time,” she said as she called the implementation a “bureaucratic nightmare”.
She argued that she had analysed all budgets from 2008 to the present and 2016 is the one most filled with taxation measures and would put strains on the average citizen. “Now you get it how to reduce inequalities? How to assist people?” she asked.
Teixeira queried the Minister of Finance stating in the budget that public servants and GuySuCo employees have to wait for collective bargaining between their unions and the government when she saw on a TV interview another senior member of government say that wages will have to wait until the COIs into GuySuCo and the Public Service are completed.
She called on government to make public the plans for D’urban Park as her party is yet to know if taxpayer’s monies were being used to upgrade the area. “So too, the construction at Cuffy Square what is it you are doing? Making a recreational park what is it? No public information, no cost, no designs, no tendering why we have to hide this if it is for the jubilee? Why you have to hide this?” she probed.
Teixeira says her party wants to see the re-implementation of the $10,000 cash grants to students, water and electricity subsidies to pensioners and the subsidy to the National Insurance Scheme for workers’ contributions among others.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Telecommunications said that with imminent telecommunications liberalisation the budget caters for positioning Guyana technologically to meet global standards.
Hughes’ ministry now has responsibility for Telecommunications, Tourism and Postal and Telegraph Services and is also the umbrella body for E-Government, the National Data Management Authority, the National Frequency Management Unit, the Guyana Post Office Corporation and the Public Utilities Commission. It also covers Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
“And what does the implementing of ICT really mean in a practical sense. It means that our children in Annai attending the Bina Hill Institute or in Aranaputa for example, must be able to benefit from the knowledge and tuition of the biology teacher at Bishops’ High School or Queen’s College. Today’s technology makes this easy with Skype. Distance or location must not be an impediment to this goal,” she said.
“In the area of health, if a medic in Morawhanna needs support with a medical issue in his community, he must be able to communicate online with a doctor in Georgetown, or close by for consultation and related assistance. And to my colleague Valerie Patterson (Minister in the Ministry of Communities) I want to assure you that when we are finished you will be able to check the status of those housing applications online without the current challenge of limited bandwidth and slow speed! The Government of Guyana will ensure that affordable, universal broadband access is available for all citizens, private sector, government and civil society, thereby eliminating the digital divide. Universal access will extend beyond voice to include internet, computing devices, information literacy and access to telecommunications services,” she added.
