Dear Editor,
Stabroek News (SN) is arguably the leading newspaper in Guyana. I have been impressed with the quality of their articles, which in most cases reflects some amount of analytical and investigative effort – they should be congratulated for their contribution.
Sadly, the article Parliament approves $47.3B in supplementary funds in yesterday’s edition, (in my opinion) does not reflect their usual high standard of reportage, since it simply regurgitates the response by the Government presenters without inclusion of the probing questions by the Opposition, where the government responses either ignored or glossed over these important questions.
With respect to the Ministry of Public Works (MoPW), in January this agency was granted $88B for Capital works (i.e., roads, bridges and such projects.) In Budget 2022, this allocation was the largest ever allocation for capital works under any ministry.
Under our financial laws, all money allocated to agencies that has not been spent by the end of the 31st December of each year, has to be returned to the treasury – if you don’t spend it, you lose it.
At the end of November, MoPW has only been able to expend approximately 51% or about $45B of the $88B of their budgetary allocation – something the Minister did not deny. His response was that he was not in parliament to discuss budgetary expenditure, but rather there to talk about roads. But rather than discuss how these road contracts will get done in the short space of time or what will change in the process of the ministry being able to compliantly expend budgeted money – in a way that has not been done all year – it was ‘open mike’ and ‘ poetry night’ at Parliament, with lots of empty headline making statements.
Looking at the numbers, to achieve the targets in the headlines, MoPW would have to disburse approximately $43B in the next 19 working days, that equals to $2.3B per day. The opposition sought a response from the government by asking – if this agency was unable to expend their approved allocation in 11 months, how would it be possible to expend the extra $18.1B requested yesterday for miscellaneous roads? We questioned the quality of the works as well as the transparency of the process, the opportunity for corruption if this agency is now tasked with spending an additional $1B per day, over and above what was previously allocated.
True to form, the government waxed lyrical about everything else, save and except this issue. Hence my disappointment in the usually analytical SN for not even mentioning these concerns which should concern every Guyanese. It remains our contention that in attempting to disburse some $61B in the next 19 working days, the opportunity is ripe for corrupt and discriminatory practices.
Yours faithfully,
David Patterson
