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AFC pickets GGMC over $3B loan to Housing Authority
…taxpayers to face burden of the repayment process – Party member
Members of the Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday protested outside the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC)’s Brickdam, Georgetown offices over the recently-approved $3 billion-dollar loan to the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA).
AFC protesters outside the GGMC Head Office yesterday.
Fueling the controversy, is the fact that the $3B used by the Commission was not approved by Parliament and acquired through the Consolidated Fund, as is the procedure for state agencies like GGMC.
The Commission had indicated, last Thursday, via a joint statement with the Housing Authority, that a $3B Loan Agreement was signed.
Those present at yesterday’s demonstration were in consensus that the act was a clear violation of the policies which govern the agency.
Since signing the Loan Agreement, GGMC has come under intense criticism from members of the Opposition. Member of Parliament and leader of A Partnership for National Unity, David Granger, recently expressed that approval was not only out of order but outside the law.
Yesterday’s demonstration saw participants picketing with placards reading “First it was CLICO, now it is GGMC”, “GGMC is operating a slush fund for the PPP”, “Stop lending the people’s money to the PPP” and “GGMC cannot pay their own workers but lending the PPP 3 billion dollars.”
Executive member of the AFC, Neilson McKenzie, called the Commission’s approval of the $3B loan an act of “blatant hypocrisy”, especially coming off the recent industrial action by GGMC workers.
For several weeks GGMC employees picketed the Commission, demanding approval for negotiations for salary and wages increases. An agreement was recently met, with strikes being called off.
McKenzie further stated that his party feels strongly that the $3B loan should be rescinded as the act was a “cleverly designed scheme to support the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) in the ignominious pursuit of foul play”.
“(It is absurd) to think that the GGMC just recently announced that they could not pay their workers a livable wage”, said the AFC executive member, “and this same entity has determined very quickly that they have the money to lend PPP propaganda and contribute to the electoral machinery.”
Meanwhile, social activist Frederick Kissoon compared the Commission’s loan approval to that of National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL)’s acquisition of funds to facilitate the building of the Marriott Hotel.
Kissoon said that in both instances, NICIL and GGMC bypassed the necessary legal procedure – that is, seeking approval from Parliament to access the Consolidated Fund – to conduct their respective expenditures.
Instead, he explained, the money was taken, in the case of GGMC, directly from the Commission to the Housing Ministry, while Parliament is under prorogation, thus making the $3B loan unconstitutional.
To that effect, Kissoon further stated that stakeholders and the opposition parties should fight against such action, as he described it as an “election maneuver that is based on illegality.”
In the end, such unconstitutional action, according to Ivan Bentham of the AFC’s Georgetown Committee, will be a burden for taxpayers whom he said will face the bulk of the repayment process.
“People should worry, because it is taxpayers’ money that is being used to conduct the unconstitutional transaction,” Bentham stressed “and taxpayers will be burdened with repayment.”
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