Ramjattan slams high infrastructure allocation in budget -says more money should be placed on lowering the cost of living
APNU+AFC Member of Parliament, Khemraj Ramjattan during his presentation on the 2024 budget in the National Assembly on Tuesday deplored the government’s allocation to infrastructure as according to him more money should have been apportioned to lowering the cost of living in the country. According to Ramjattan, citizens should brace for 2024 to be one of the hardest years as the cost of living is expected to rise even more. “A nation must invest in ending poverty and its working poor must get a better deal… I feel that that has not happened with the budget, it is important then that we feel that these monies should have been more spread across rather than being given largely to what I regard as a 1000 contractor cronies capitalists who will benefit from that $662b.”
Arguing that “times are hard” in Guyana, Ramjattan said that rather than spending such a large sum on roads and construction the government should have at least put $100m more into improving the standard of living countrywide. According to him, based on his estimation contractors are expected to get about 20% of each contract sum in profit, pointing out that a few years ago he had spoken about the mismanagement of funds when big projects are awarded. “What we have in this budget is a spending of $662b in infrastructure of all varieties and what we have as wages and salaries and pensions is a $120b, Mr. Speaker when we go back to the practical realities of what it is that the construction contractors will make it is generally in the vicinity of about 20% profit for each contract”, he said. Ramjattan elaborated, “20% profits for each contract will make a $133b which will then go to some companies and some private contractors and that is about 1,000 of them, it is roughly a 1,000 0f them that win the contracts over the years in the PPP government and so you have $133b going towards this 1,000.” According to the Opposition member of parliament, there are around 54,000 public servants and 76,000 pensioners who in totality were allocated “$120b as against $133b for about 1,000, we are going to create a caste
system in this country.”
He said the inequalities are going to be so vast to the extent “whereby they are going to control this economy.”
Ramjattan, who is the country’s former Minister of Public Security then questioned how a government can spend such a large amount on infrastructure knowing that there are citizens countrywide complaining about the increase in cost of living, as he opined that “poverty is not being confronted” in the budget.
Saying that he would have visited the “estates area” where he was told by residents that although they voted for the PPP/C, the government seems to be against them, he said “and the constant fear that it will get worse, that is what people think.”
Labeling the government, a “cement and sand” one, Ramjattan said that there should have been a more “balanced approach” to the distribution of the spending. “We have seen that, sometimes you can overheat an economy by spending so much on infrastructure when you do not have the capacity and capabilities.”
Turning to the need for contractors to be disciplined and held accountable, Ramjattan said for stalled contracts “you have to start taking away the contracts, you have to start ensuring that they don’t do this indisciplined thing.”