Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
2014 Budget cuts to UG loan…Opposition willing to restore UG student loan subsidy – Granger
Leader of the Opposition coalition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) retired Brig David Granger has reiterated
Leader of APNU
David Granger
that his party stands ready to restore the $450M UG loan subsidy that was disapproved in the budget.
However, Government has to bring it back to the National Assembly since constitutionally, that cannot be done by the Opposition.
The combined opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and Alliance for Change (AFC), had contended that based on the Chief Justice’s ruling that the Opposition could no longer cut the Budget, only approve or disapprove. They had cause to remove in excess of $37 Billion of the $220 Billion budget in areas that they deemed contentious.
The Opposition could no longer cut line items within the budget; only disapprove of the whole section so areas that were deemed as contentious were disapproved with areas that were deemed by the combined opposition to be non problematic.
Some of the non problematic areas that were disapproved included the Capital and Current expenditure under the Office of the President (OP), the subsidy for Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) and the University of Guyana subsidy.
According to Granger, Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh, tried to bundle the UG student loan subsidy with other items which they could not support, such as allocations for National Communications Network (NCN) and Government Information News Agency (GINA) which the opposition had said was very biased in its coverage of news.
If they didn’t rectify their position then funding would be disapproved.
Granger reiterated that APNU did not want to vote against the UG loan subsidy. He said that Government could return with it for supplementary financing provided that was not encumbered with measures they cannot support.
He said, “The constitution prohibits the opposition from bringing financial measures to the National Assembly; we do not have the constitutional authority to do so, so when the government brings it we will vote on it.
Leader of the AFC Khemraj Ramjattan
“We support the restoration of the student loan and we look forward to the government bringing it back to us so that we can vote on it.”
Attorney General (AG), Anil Nandlall, had said, however, that he found it strange that the combined opposition “is now requesting Government to bring to the National Assembly in the form of supplementary estimates which they consciously and deliberately disapproved.”
Nandlall added that the government “does not operate and will not operate on the whims, fancies and caprice of the opposition.”
He continued that the combined opposition disapproved certain positions of the budget and it did so conscious of the consequences.
It posited “that government will charter its own way forward on this matter, at its own time and upon its own terms.”
He said that a way forward on the cuts were not paved by government as yet even in the face of the cries coming from those whom have been afflicted ironically within government itself among others.
Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, speaking to Government’s position, said that NCN and GINA were bundled with the University of Guyana loan.
“We warned them that they are playing with trouble and it was all caused by the AG taking the issue to the Chief Justice a
Attorney General
Anil Nandlall
year before and that ruling was the one that caused the entire disapproval.”
According to Ramjattan, “We then said that if you are not going to unbundle we will disapprove of the entire set of allocations in that grouping and they will have to bring it back later on.
“If they don’t want to come back it is not we who are at fault with the UG students and with IAST (Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology), it is they who are at fault because if they care for the UG students they could come back within 24 hours and we pass that.”
“But if they want to play this ugly macabre game with the lives of employees and lives of students, well they can carry on…They obviously don’t care about anybody,” said Ramjattan.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
Fastest growing economy and an empty stadium
…Peeping Tom Kaieteur News- It’s a classic Guyanese tale, really. You live in the fastest growing economy in the... more
Rising Gun Crimes in the Caribbean: Urgent Action required by all
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News – There is an alarming surge in gun-related violence, particularly among younger... more
Weekend Cartoon
