The budget cuts will not have the proclaimed impact

Apr 29, 2012 Features / Columnists, My Column

---

I have heard a lot about the budget cuts. I have also seen the spin put on the situation. I have seen the emotions on both sides of the table and most of all, I have seen the likely fallout from a serious challenge to the government about whatever the government feels very serious about.
Last week I got the distinct impression that the budget would have been passed without any major disruption, because President Donald Ramotar had met with A Partnership for National Unity and had reached an agreement of sorts. Then I learnt that the agreement was not what it should be.
What I do know is that there has been a flexing of muscles on both sides of the National Assembly. The government was saying that it was in the leadership seat and that it was going to lead at all costs; that it would not accept anything less.
The opposition then said that it had the power to make the government think twice and that it was going to use that power. The end result was some budget cuts, the first time in the history of the National Assembly in independent Guyana.
The cuts having been made, I now hear of possible job cuts. This I find rather unusual, because all my years covering the parliamentary beat, I have learnt that whenever there are budgetary shortfalls ,the government simply goes back to the National Assembly for supplementary votes.
Three entities hit by the cuts happen to be the National Communications Network (NCN), the Government Information Agency (GINA) and the entities attached to the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). I have said that the cuts to the NCN are meaningless, and I am in a position to say so because I am in the communication business.
On Friday I learnt that NCN was a private sector entity. This means that it must operate as a private entity in the same way the other private media entities operate. It must go out and solicit advertisement, and produce programmes that would attract an audience.
I also know that it received millions if not billions of dollars in equipment from foreign agencies, not least among them the Chinese, when the other private entities had to dig into their pockets to buy whatever equipment they needed. I also know that Prime Minister Sam Hinds, when asked about the liberalisation of the radio, said that it could not be done, because NCN would not have been able to compete with private radio stations.
Reason would dictate that if an entity was incapable of competing ,despite the millions of dollars it gets from central government and with the multi-million-dollar donations from foreign agencies, then that entity needs to go to the wall.
To reinforce my contention, the administrators of NCN said that they gross in excess of $500 million a year – five times what any other private media entity grosses. If the other media entities can survive, why can’t NCN without a subvention that the company said was less than ten per cent of its revenue?
But I happened to see NCN workers protesting that they are being put on the bread line.
Then there is GINA. I can understand the reasoning that people should not give a knife to someone to cut the donor’s throat. For more than fifteen years I have heard the political opposition saying that GINA has never shown any inclination to open its doors to the political opposition. Why should the opposition fund an entity that cares nothing about it?
I worked with the Ministry of Information which did the same job GINA was supposed to do. That Ministry served the government, the political opposition, and the wider community alike. Those who were around then can attest to this. The Ministry of Information justified whatever money it got from the government.
And there is the LCDS programme. As I understand it, the money from the government was a loan, until there was the drawdown from the funds given to the country by Norway. Guyana has been asked to do certain things to access this money, but after two years it is still to access one cent. Certainly the government has not been doing what it should.
Last year there was a $13 billion allocation, on loan until the funds come. This year there was an $18 billion allocation. The opposition parties have simply said that the government should get the Norway money. This makes sense.
If the government is made to work for money due to it, then there would be some serious move to draw down the money. There would have been no $18 billion cut had the government gone after money due to it from the Norway fund.
The cut by the opposition has lit a fire under the government. The spinners are talking about the one laptop programme and the halt to this programme. I see it another way. There are some 40,000 laptops in the society. Surely the private sector would take pride in making this programme work.
When last I checked, after installing the necessary facilities, and after one year free service to every laptop owner, whoever provided the internet service stood to rake in $45 million every month. Any private sector entity would make the investment. And the government has said a lot about empowering the private sector.
Providing solar panels to the Amerindian communities is already underway. There is money in the system already for the continuation of this programme. I cannot understand all the talk about this programme being halted. And in any case, once the government collects the US$70 million ($14 billion) that is already there and about to get bigger, these projects would be in heaven.
President Donald Ramotar said that the Amaila Falls project would be affected. I do not see how. Contractors are already working feverishly to complete the road and the foreign investors are about to complete the financial deal—although I must admit that this has taken longer than usual. We saw the allocation of funds from the budget to ‘Fip’ Motilall, and we now see how we wasted money.
And the nation is aware of the fantastic sums being paid from the same public treasury to people who do precious little. One foreigner recruited, spoke of earning close to a million dollars a month for doing squat. But the sums to continue such spending were passed.
If only there could have been a redistribution of such funds then there would not have been all these crocodile tears.
Anyhow, I have got the impression that President Ramotar is prepared to return to the polls. If he wins a majority then there can be the continued splurge. If he loses, nothing more needs to be said. But for now I am convinced that the cuts will change nothing especially since there is always recourse to the supplementary funds.

---

---