By Bebi Oosman
Bemoaning the rising cost of living, APNU+AFC Parliamentarian, Khemraj Ramjattan on Tuesday said that he cannot support the 2023 budget and he argued that his government’s decision to “right-size” the sugar industry was a transformational one.
Ramjattan in his presentation in parliament pointed out that before the 2023 budget, some $13b had already been spent by the PPP/C Government on the sugar industry “and we are today going to spend another $4b behind sugar.”
He stated, “What was transformational was the right-sizing of the sugar industry so that you don’t pour good money behind bad sectors, billions and billions of dollars… To spend so much money on sugar is pouring good money behind bad Mr. Finance Minister…”
Arguing in support of the previous government’s decision to close sugar estates, Ramjattan said workers were given their severance benefits and that if “it is going to drag an economy down we had to make the correct decision, that was transformational… Mr. Speaker, we repeat and maintain that the false explanations and narrative being given by the government, minister of agriculture, and CEO of GuySuCo are all ill-advised and is a road to nowhere.”
Touching specifically on the Rose Hall Estate, he said, that the estate has been advertising for jobs but people have not been going.
However, Sasenarine Singh, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GuySuCo yesterday told Stabroek News, some 1440 persons have since been hired at the Rose Hall Estate.
According to Ramjattan, the evidence is clear that the shortage of labour will persist in the sector. “Our workforce is not trained beyond substantially a cutlass and punt mentality… That is not what the next generation in the estates have been telling me that they want. They want to get jobs in the new sectors and you want them to have this cutlass and punt mentality so that you can always bamboozle them and kerfuffle them.”
Ramjattan said that the PPP/C government had said that the Skeldon Estate sugar modernization under the Jagdeo administration would be a “transformational project.” However, he then questioned, “Where is the Skeldon sugar factory today?”
According to Ramjattan, there will always be problems with the sugar industry, especially with climate change, “its management, no workforce, GAWU having strikes all the time, and you must now appreciate the transformational decision that was made to right-size that sector.”
Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony in his presentation said that Ramjattan in every budget speech takes an opportunity to attack sugar workers and their families. “He (Ramjattan) said the APNU, meaning the PNC and AFC, was very proud to right-size the sugar industry” retrenching some 7,000 sugar workers.
Anthony said an average of 28,000 persons (sugar workers and their families) were thrown on the breadline and that is the legacy Ramjattan is proud of.
He added that when the present administration tries to resuscitate the industry, to give people a livelihood, and to bring back dignity to those families “he comes to parliament and says they are throwing good money after a bad” sector.
Anthony reminded that it was the Ramjattan who campaigned on increasing sugar workers’ salaries to gain government in 2015.
According to Anthony, when his party left government in 2015, the growth in the sugar industry was 6.9% while in 2016 under the APNU+AFC government, it dropped by 20.6%, while in 2017 it dropped by 25.2%, in 2018 by 23.8%, 2019 by 11.8% and 2020 by 3.7 %, “this is the legacy, this how they have destroyed the sugar industry…”
Research and development
Touching on the rice industry, Ramjattan said that he was happy to see that $300m was put towards research and development to improve yields and to ensure alternatives to control paddy bugs. However, concerning livestock and poultry, Ramjattan said that there is a notable paradox in the statistics provided by Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, “we see an increase in livestock production and poultry production but we see a reduction of milk and eggs.”
He said that whatever the reasons may be behind that there must be “major interventions for milk and eggs.”
Ramjattan pointed out that there has been an increase in cage fishing, and brackish water shrimp farms all of which analysis must be done so as to determine “why all these fish sectors have gone into a decline.”
He said it could be that “so much environmentally hazardous stuff (is) being poured into the ocean but you don’t want to do an analysis into that and to speak the truth to the people in the fisherfolk community.”
Ramjattan then argued that giving out cash grants to fisherfolks will not solve the problems the fishing industry is being faced with.
He said, “Mr. Speaker there is lots that could be done, other than just handing out cash transfers. You should have gone and taken on Mr. Vince Adams to tell the Exxon people what they must not do and that is don’t throw the water with the oil inside of the ocean, that is one of the reasons but you don’t want that.”
According to Ramjattan, the government is seeking to dodge a strong Environmental Protection Agency and a strong local Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative body here.
Ramjattan then also questioned, who will be the persons benefiting from the brackish water shrimp farms and cage fishing initiatives.
Anthony pointed out that the fishing industry in 2018 under the APNU+AFC saw a decline by 8.4%, while in 2020 it took a major dip by 17.1 %. “The decline in the fishing industry started with the APNU+AFC and this is what we are working to correct”, he said.
Cost of living
Meanwhile, Ramjattan stressed repeatedly that the cost of living has increased throughout the country. He said. “Cost of living is so much, everything up.”
He stated that the opposition is proposing that budget 2023 must have “an increase in the minimum wage (to) $150,000, with corresponding adjustments to personal income tax. We propose an increase in old age pension to $50,000, we propose an increase in disability benefits to $40,000, we propose a reduction of VAT to 12%.”
He added that they also propose that new shelters be developed around the regions for women being abused and to support victims of domestic violence.
In today’s context, he said, “we are having a hard time” which he noted is a result of the high cost of living.
According to Ramjattan, some of the “infrastructural spending” in Guyana could have been nudged away to “and at least be given to the working people, so that the working people could have a better day and not having to literally get malnourished.”
He said that instead of spending “so much on infrastructure” the government could have given “5% more for the people of this country.”
He then questioned the output of the part-time job programme launched countrywide which allows citizens to earn $40,000 after working ten days, Ramjattan said, “You don’t deal with poverty with cash transfers like that… You just going to buy the votes, that’s all you know about, buying the votes over there.”
Stressing that it is not a budget he can support, Ramjattan opined that there is no planning, no targeting, and no output as he labelled it “policy poor”, and according to him “that is why the cost of living has gone so high.”
“You really cannot support this budget, you really cannot. It has all the hallmarks of that which is ensuring a disproportionate distribution of our oil and gas funding, oil and gas money and we are waging now a serious psychological battle of the resentments which are coming”, he warned.
Ramjattan, a former minister of public security, opined that the security sector in Guyana is currently in “disarray.” According to him, “with the little” his government had “much was done” in the security sector.
He said crime has gone up, “execution-style murders … domestic violence, robbers, choke and rob, and even cutlass and gun firing at the President’s State House, it is terrible…”
Ramjattan said that his government had strengthened patrol management and the use of data analytics policing, promoting a culture of non-violence, improving and appropriating money for public spaces, and fostering socioeconomic insertion activities for at-risk youths, while the Office of Professional Responsibly was restructured.
He then stressed that one of the important aspects for his government was ensuring that there was scrutiny and transparency within the security sector as he said that the Parliamentary Oversight Committee for the sector has now not been meeting.
