Harmon says budget ‘meaningless’
Leader of the Opposition Joseph Harmon on Tuesday declared that the 2021 budget was mostly vacuous and meaningless.
“[A] Budget is meant to be a template for development but [this one] is a testimony to disarray in the Government,” he told a virtual press conference yesterday
Harmon stressed that the budget was filled with “terminological inexactitudes” including a “reengineered truth about US$135 million from Norway.”
Minister with responsibility for Finance Ashni Singh in the budget presentation claimed that more than US$135 million that was earned by Guyana as part of a forest partnership agreement with Norway is sitting in bank accounts outside our economy.
He said that the agreement born out of the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) provided for Guyana to earn payments for climate services up to US$250 million over a five-year period however once the APNU/AFC government came into office, they squandered whatever funds were available, and brought the release of the rest of the funds already earned by Guyana to a halt.
“This culminated in the last payments from Norway being suspended. On top of this lost opportunity, a successor Guyana/Norway agreement for the period from 2015 to 2020 never materialised. Almost US$30 million for existing projects has not been disbursed,” Singh stated.
Though Harmon specifically said that this statement was not accurate he did not rebut the claims instead he asserted that the truth will be fully exposed in the budget debate which begins on Monday.
The same claim was made for several other matters the rebuttal of which the Opposition Leader deferred to the impending budget debate.
Harmon challenged Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo to publicly declare what percentage of increase would be provided to Public Servants.
Jagdeo had previously been reported as stating that a huge part of a more that $10 billion allocation under the head, “revision of wages and salaries” would go towards salary increases for public sector workers.
Harmon however remains unconvinced and maintained that the PPP/C has failed to address the issue. He went on to challenge the government to make public the percentage of increase provided for.
“Public servants are upset…come out and say what you are going to pay - 8, 9, 10 12, 15 percent, come out and make an announcement,” he challenged.
Minister of the Public Service Sonia Parag has however said that such an announcement would breach collective bargaining procedure.
“Making an announcement for an increase in salary and a percentage … is contrary to collective bargaining. It’s not the norm. You take away the right of collective bargaining if you do that. So, you cannot be contradictory and want a percentage in there and you’re taking away the rights of collective bargaining under which you have an agreement to do,” she is reported as stating to the Department of Public Information.
Harmon’s government while in office had also never announced in their budgets what the public service wage increase would be. Furthermore, the APNU+AFC government did not engage in collective bargaining despite promising this.