Giving diametrically opposing views on the 2022 budget, Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC and his legal affairs shadow, Roysdale Forde SC on Friday also clashed over the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) which will govern revenues from the oil and gas industry.
The PPP/C government last year controversially repealed APNU+AFC’s version of the NRF law and replaced it with its own.
APNU+AFC MP Forde accused the government of “raiding and looting” the NRF, a reference to the fact that the PPP/C law allows the entire fund to be drained for the first year of expenditure. Forde also accused the government of “purportedly [passing] it with virtually no notice and no consultation.” APNU+AFC has charged that at the bill was not legally passed as a result of the chaos that engulfed the House on December 29th when its MPs attempted to prevent debate on the bill.
Nandlall in rebuttal on Friday stated that much has been said about the withdrawal of monies from the NRF but declared “that money belongs to the people of Guyana. $126 billion will be drawn from that fund this year. Every cent is reflected in this budget to be spent on and for the people of Guyana. And we have no apologies for that.”
Every cent, he said, will be deposited in the Consolidated Fund and appropriated in the National Assembly; and will be interrogated and explained in the Committee of Supply which will be streamed live for every Guyanese and the world to view and hear how the money will be spent.
“That should immediately halt the baseless and reckless allegations of thievery and corruption,” the AG opined.
Earlier, Forde slammed the government’s proposed $552.9 billion national budget, describing it as “anti-family” and cementing the divide between the “haves and have-nots.”
Forde said that the budget is one “that would make this nation sick.”
In full support of the budget, however, Nandlall commended it to the House as one which creates the “foundation and structure upon which the edifice of modern Guyana will be constructed.”
The AG lauded the budget as one that reflects “our newfound wealth and (enviable) status as one of the largest oil producing nations in this hemisphere, though only in its embryonic stages. We will be recorded on the positive side of history. Future generations will salute our contribution,” he said.
The APNU+AFC shadow AG, however, contended that while the budget presented by Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance Dr Ashni Singh is titled “steadfast against all challenges: Resolute in building our one Guyana,” it does just the opposite
According to Forde, “the budget fails to provide the blueprint for a better Guyana and an equitable distribution of the resources and is short on substance;” while advancing that it “unashamedly skews the opportunity to the few and increases the burden on the many.”
He said citizens have witnessed and experienced a rapid deterioration of social and economic conditions over the last year which has been compounded by what he described as the PPP/C Government’s “inept, abysmal” handling of the COVID-19 pandemic which he said has led among other things to a staggering number of deaths.
Citing what he said were figures from the Bureau of Statistics, the APNU+AFC frontbencher said that cost of living increased by 14% for the first seven months of the 2021 while general living costs increased by 5.4%.
Food prices
This increase in food prices, he said, has affected poverty levels, household income and children’s schooling; thus increasing the burden on families—particularly single-parent families led by women—who along with their children are disproportionately affected by the high cost of living.
The lawyer contended that these are the challenges Guyanese face and will face after the 2022 Budget which he said is void of solutions. It was against this background that he said “this budget goes further in ensuring, guaranteeing and cementing the building of one Guyana of the haves and one Guyana of the have-nots.”
According to Forde, the government’s refusal to adopt the Village Renewal Programme as proposed by the Trades Union Congress, will result in the inability of villages and rural areas to cope with “the ever increasing high cost of living, rising inflation, rising unemployment, hunger, social ills, increased use of alcohol, drugs, more crime and suicide, unstable families, vulnerabilities of the aged, women and children.”
In examining what he said is the real income of the Guyanese labour force, Forde said “the reality is that the Guyanese people are punishing.”
The increase in the tax exemption ceiling to $75,000 per month in the 2022 budget he said, has resulted in a monthly disposable income of the average salaried worker of $90,574.
This, he said, meant that salaried workers got an increase in real income of $2,617 which translates to $21.29 or six US cents per day for each member of a family of four. The net change from the pre-budget income he said, is $10 or two US cents per day.
Against this background, the APNU+AFC frontbencher hammered the government for what he said was nothing more than a “US 2 cents budget,” stating that in a budget of $556,000,000,000, of which $126,000,000,000 came from the Natural Resource Fund, all the average family has received is a ten dollar coin—the equivalent of 2 US cents per day.”
“This budget leaves these families to stand steadfastly alone against these challenges…these families are left to fend for themselves. This Budget is anti-family,” Forde said.
Mammoth
Nandlall in his presentation, however, said that the aggregate budgeted sum of the mammoth $552 billion constitutes, by far, the largest financial injection, ever, in the Guyanese economy; noting, “I have said elsewhere, it is like injecting a racehorse with a huge dose of steroid before the race begins.”
The AG said that without the gigantic spinoff benefits destined to flow therefrom, the mere expenditure of the massive sum “will invigorate every corner of this nation with a level of commercial, economic, and social activity never witnessed before.”
The AG recalled his entry to parliament in 2006 when the entire national budget was $102 billion but boasted that in 2022 that sum alone has been allocated for infrastructure.
Nandlall added that despite its magnitude, it imposes no new taxation; while stating that it not only reversed taxes imposed by APNU+AFC, but confers a regime of liberal tax concessions for the ordinary citizen as well as those in the commercial sector.
“That is prudent fiscal management,” Nandlall declared.
According to the AGl, government was able to move revenue collection from about $160 billion in 2016 to $255 billion in 2021, without any new taxes, largely because of growth in economic activities.
Nandlall who is also Minister of Legal Affairs said that the budget allocates $3,505,206,000 to the Judiciary. He said the new developmental trajectory in which the country is headed, will require a new and modern legal and statutory foundation and framework.
During his presentation, Forde said the governing regime failed to invest in the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) over the years it had previously been in office and argued that “as a matter of priority, the monies in the (NRF) should have been allocated to a truly national institution, the National Insurance Scheme.”
He accused Singh of permitting and allowing the “plunder” of the NIS. House Speaker Manzoor Nadir objected to Forde’s charge against the Finance Minister of plundering the Scheme.
With shouts of support from his fellow opposition members, Forde amended his accusation to say that it was Singh who had been responsible for the NIS when its monies were plundered.
Forde then accused the Scheme’s Board which he notes was appointed by the Regime of “giving away…millions of dollars to persons who fail to satisfy the number of contributions required.”
These beneficiaries according to Forde, “are the friends, families and associates of Government Ministers of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic.”
Again the Speaker cautioned Forde, asking whether he had evidence to substantiate the claims he was making.
The lawyer said he did and committed to producing it on Monday to illustrate that a close relative of a member of the PPP government, was paid some $1 million without the entitlement to support the payout.
Stating that the “Rule of Law is under attack by the regime,” Forde said “one of the major features of any People’s Progressive Party/Civic rule has been extra-judicial killings,” for which he went on to blame the government for Orin Boston’s September 15th, 2021 killing at the hands of the police.
Nandlall in an objection pointed out that the matter is currently sub judice and ought not to be pronounced on outside of the Courts. The Speaker sustained the AG’s objection.
In his presentation, however, Nandlall told Forde that while there are police excesses the world over, the consequences therefrom ought not to be credited to the government as being responsible therefor.
