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EU imposes strange terms on Guyana

May 27, 2009 News

There is no requirement in the sugar accompanying measures financing agreement for a Poverty Reduction Strategy paper to be submitted for the purpose of qualifying for sugar sector budget support.
This is according to the Government of Guyana in a statement issued recently.
The statement noted that the PRSP cannot therefore be used by the European Commission as a basis for withholding sugar sector budget support.
The Government was responding to the European Union Ambassador to Guyana, Geert Heikens, who stated that Guyana had much difficulty in meeting the criteria for a 6M Euros to the General Budget Support thus losing the money.
The incident stemmed from the fact that the Guyana Sugar Corporation submitted its business plan six months after the stipulated deadline as set out by the EU for such grants.
According to the Government, there is however a requirement related to the PRSP under the General Budget Support Programme.
The requirement states that “Satisfactory progress should be made in the establishment of a second generation poverty reduction strategy drawing from lessons learnt from the first PRSP.”
As such the government is arguing that from the language used in the requirement, there is no obligation for the PRSP to be completed and approved by Cabinet or by any other authority for satisfactory progress to have been made and for the condition to be met.
The government added that for the purposes of supporting its application for disbursement, under the general budget support programme, the Cabinet-approved draft of the PRSP was submitted to the EC Delegation with a confirmatory letter from the Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon.
According to the statement, there has been a consistent position that there is no requirement for a final version of the PRSP, and that the requirement of satisfactory progress has been adequately demonstrated by the submission of a draft approved by Cabinet to the Delegation.
However, the government is contenting that is a ‘striking’ coincidence that most of the difficulties encountered in the implementation of European Union budget support came shortly after Guyana adopted a position that was critical of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

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