THINGS WHICH THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO

Aug 29, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The government has shown its experience. It takes more than an old head to get things right with a National Budget.

Mistakes were to be expected. The government was replacing one that was in power for twenty-three years and therefore some accommodation has to be made for lack of familiarity with running a country.

But when you can pass laws which granted autonomy to certain offices and then prepare estimates which are inconsistent with the intentions of the new law, it causes concern as to why these mistakes were made.

It is hoped that the new government, which is keen on diagnosing the ills of the economy and society, will take steps to investigate how the blunders with the estimates were made. Even if this is for internal housekeeping purposes only, it should be done so as to avoid the same thing happening again.

No one is asking, as yet, for heads to roll. Enough heads are being rolled already to add more to that list. But some form of accountability for the blunders has to be made to see what can be done to make the system better and avoid the embarrassment that took place.

One of the disappointing features of the work of the Committee of Supply was the answers given to many questions. In far too many instances there were replies to questions that indicated that the information requested would be supplied subsequently. This is unacceptable when one considers that the various Ministers are allowed to have their technical personnel at their side when answering questions. There should have been more information available at hand.

The PPP did promise that it would provide rigorous oversight. The government should have been better prepared. It also should have allowed for more days for the consideration of the estimates, even though the hours were extremely long.

There are still many questions unanswered that should be answered. For example, the opposition has claimed that certain sums have not been identified. The Ministry of Finance should make a list of all the unanswered questions and provide the answers. Guyanese voted for greater transparency and they are going to be disappointed with anything less.

Now that the Budget has been passed, the big question is whether it is capable of stimulating the economy to achieve growth in the last half, and particularly in the last quarter.

There is another major problem. The gold miners have been offered increased concessions, because it was felt that production was falling and there was a need for incentives to boost production. Now we are learning about massive gold smuggling. If this is true, it means the basis for the concessions does not exist. It means that there has been production, except it is not being recorded, since a great deal of gold is being smuggled.

The government should not be afraid to renegotiate with the gold miners if it is felt that there has been no real fall in production.

Finally, the government should explain how it is that when oil prices fell to below $60 per barrel, the PPP was able to reduce the price of gasoline by hundreds of dollars but now that prices are falling far lower, the new government can only reduce the price by $11 per litre.