THE DEATH OF A LIVING WAGE

Jan 16, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A serious credibility problem lies over the National Budget that is to be presented in the National Assembly tomorrow. That crisis emerges from the experience late last year that at least twice the government had to move to the National Assembly for multi-billion dollar approvals for supplementary provisions.
What these applications suggest is that there are serious problems with the way the country’s finances are being budgeted for. When a government, after passing one of the largest Budgets in the history of the country, still has to go to the National Assembly to authorize such large supplementary provisions, it needs to be asked how come these sums were not originally catered for and what this says about the level of planning involved in the Budget preparation.
It is never going to be possible to be able to get things always right, so as to avoid having these applications for supple tray provisions. All governments in Guyana have gone this route, and have done so consistently in applying for supplementary provisions, but the multi-billion dollar provisions that have been applied for by the PPP at least twice in one year raise serious questions about the need for the forecasting and budgeting process to be strengthened.
The opposition asked important questions during the last application. They did not get all the answers they were seeking. They will not also get all the answers they are seeking this time around, but there are some serious questions that the opposition need to ask about tomorrow‘s Budget. It was just a short while ago that the government applied for a supplementary provision to provide close to three billion dollars to the housing sector for infrastructural works.
Now if the government was aware that there would have been an early Budget this year, it should have waited and therefore avoided having to make the supplementary application late last year for the housing sector.
That said, the people of Guyana need to ask just what the Budget will mean for them. Will it mean lower prices at the shops? Will it result in a reduction in transportation costs? Will it see breadwinners taking home greater incomes and thus having more to spend on their families? Will it see the setting of a baseline living wage towards which the government would work over the next five years?
In education and health, will teachers and nurses be receiving higher pay? Will the retirement age for these categories of workers be extended so as to be able to ensure adequate staffing in schools and within the public health system?
And what about the level of service that is provided to the members of the public? Will the hundreds of persons who have to wait hours just to apply for a new passport be provided with a quicker service? Will persons residing out of town still have to travel long distances just to apply for a passport or will provisions be made for them to apply for these documents within their region?
How can we speak about progress within our society and about a laptop in every family when we cannot fix basic systems such as applying for a passport or even a birth certificate? Why should Guyanese in the 21st century have to wait a long time for these documents? Why are there, also, so many problems with the National Insurance Scheme?
The answer is obvious. Unless there is a massive change in the way things are done within the government bureaucracy, then citizens will continue to be shortchanged each day, as is the case with so many government offices.
The government cannot continue to blame inefficient workers. The government has had enough time to get these systems right and to dismiss the incompetents who need to be removed. It therefore should not be making any excuses.
Certainly one would expect that a working class government would in a Budget, especially an election year Budget, try to address the burning concerns of the working class, including the high cost of living.
If tomorrow’s Budget only speaks to projects that are going to be extended and does not detail a plan to improve the level of service provided to the people; unless it shows concern for the working class by establishing a living wage towards which incomes should gravitate in the next few years; unless it states definitely what it is going to do to turn around sugar, then the Budget would not have been worth much and it would be much better if the entire exercise was equated to one massive supplemental application.

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