-Hamilton slams APNU+AFC over health and safety
Debate on the 2021 budget started yesterday with APNU+AFC MP Amanza Walton-Desir questioning whether government’s Public Sector Investment Programme can be delivered and Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton flaying the previous administration’s record on worker safety in a session that also saw numerous insults and the brandishing of a sex toy.
In the early hours of the debate, Hamilton pre-emptively labelled opposition contributions as “puerile in nature, full of banality and profanity.”
“You will get nothing that will uplift the people of this cooperative republic instead you’ll hear backyard conversations, rum shop gaffs and standpipe arguments,” he told the House, adding directly to the opposition that “You could shout how much you want over there….today you are becoming irrelevant even among your supporters. Nobody listens to you…nobody cares about you because they know you have nothing to offer to this country”.
The Minister charged that APNU+AFC did nothing to improve labour relations or protect the health and safety of workers in Guyana.
“Our people were dying in the mining pits, they were dying on the constructions sites, yet the APNU+AFC government did not see it fit to train and employ more occupational health and safety officers,” Hamilton said, adding that his government has in five months increased the number of these officers from nine to 30 because they recognize the importance of worksite safety.
Additionally the Occupational Health and Safety Department is said to be reviewing legislation for the oil and gas sector.
“We will ensure that in every region there will have occupational health and safety officers to supervise the work of people,” he stressed.
Also increased is the number of labour officers from 16 to 26. Each region with the exception of Region Four is expected to have two officers.
The Central Recruitment and Management Agency and Board of Industrial Training are also expected to expand their reach to every region.
Touting his 22 years of membership in the House, Hamilton – a former senior member of APNU’s main component, the PNC, accused the speaker before him of race baiting.
‘Racism that’s the only thing you have left…nothing of substance. When you condemn the programmes we have in the budget you have no substitute to recommend,” he charged.
Contemptuous
The member referenced was Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs Walton-Desir who had begun the day’s proceedings by accusing government, specifically Minister with responsibility for Finance Dr Ashni Singh of being contemptuous of the mostly Afro-Guyanese men and women in the public service.
According to the Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs this was made obvious by Singh’s failure to offer gratitude to the staff who worked to prepare the budget he presented.
“They can’t even get a thank you which costs nothing, so the scepticism public servants feel when it comes to promises of an increase in their salaries is understandable,” she told the House.
Following Walton-Desir’s presentation, Speaker Manzoor Nadir noted for the record that while the presentation laid in the House did not reference the staff members Singh did offer his gratitude for their efforts on the floor of the Assembly during his five-hour budget presentation two weeks ago.
In critiquing the contents of the Budget, Walton-Desir argued that its size does not matter.
She stressed that what is importance is the efficiency of the use of resources and the distribution of those resources.
“How fairly and how equitably have the resources been allocated? We only need to look at the metric of allocation per region to see the disproportionality when Regional spending is examined Mr. Speaker, Region 4 is the lowest by far per capita. I wonder why?” she questioned.
While she said that she was not an economist, the parliamentarian stated that she knows that budget financing is important.
“Simply put, this budget 2021 is being financed by destroying the sound tax base that the PPP/C inherited from the Coalition, in preference to borrowing…By the end of 2021 if everything goes right with this budget, we would have racked up new debt of about US$1 billion. In stark terms that is equivalent to five times the amount of money we have in the Natural Resource Fund,” she told the House stressing that this burden will rest on the next generation who are being saddled with debt.
Walton-Desir expressed skepticism about the proposed expansion of the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP).
The expansion would be good she argued if the PPP/C was not known for failed projects such as the Skeldon Sugar Factory, the Kato School and several floating wharfs.
According to the Parliamentarian the PPP/C is proposing to double the PSIP at a time when the private sector in Guyana does not have the manpower, machinery nor expertise to execute such an ambitious undertaking and all and sundry are grappling with the challenges of the pandemic and all under a pre-2015 procurement system which is known for multiple breaches.
Briefly addressing her expected area of focus, Walton-Desir accused government of an erratic foreign policy.
“We have seen the complete mismanagement of Guyana’s foreign relations and international affairs. We have seen the abandoning of sound foreign policy positions, the wanton disregard and violation of decades-old friendships. And more of this is to be expected, Mr. Speaker, more of this is to be expected, because when you sell your soul and the soul of this nation to acquire power, you place yourself and the people of Guyana at the whims and dictates of your benefactors. So, all that Guyanese can expect in the context of foreign policy is more of the same,” she stressed, adding that we can expect that cataclysmic foreign policy announcements will be made via social media by third party State Officials instead of officials of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs as in the case of the establishment of economic relations with Taiwan.
“We can expect to have to read foreign newspapers to learn that important decisions have been made, purportedly on behalf of the people of Guyana, as in the case of the sudden de-recognition of the SADR (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), which we only learnt of here in Guyana because of reports in the Moroccan media, or as is case with the downgrading of the Guyana High Commission in Trinidad and Tobago to a Consular Office which we had to learn about from a news report in the Trinidad and Tobago dailies,” the parliamentarian concluded.
During his 35-minute presentation, Hamilton found time to deliver a series of attacks, one of which appeared to be homophobic.
“You must stop having that woman jump out of your body,” he appears to tell a member on the opposition benches as he rose to make his presentation. Later in the midst of his argument Hamilton applied descriptors to each of the Opposition members slated to speak, one member is labelled the author of corrupt land deals, another labelled “bangles, bed sheets and pillow cases”, a lady who wanted a “leaf bangle”, the man who bought “barber chairs and mirrors” and “then you will have profanity from the lady who jumps out of a man’s body regularly”. At no time was he admonished by the Speaker.
The last descriptor was welcomed by a loud cackle from a member of the government side of the House.
Later, Director-General of the Ministry of Health, Dr Vishwa Mahadeo displayed in the House a sex toy which he claimed was delivered to the rehabilitation centre instead of a requested chest vibrator.
How the sex toy and its requisition directly related to a debate on policies was not made clear but the politician argued that his colleagues on the other side of the House were somehow responsible for its purchase.
