Opposition not interested in 2017 budget talks with Government

Oct 13, 2016 News

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By Kiana Wilburg

For the time being, the political opposition is not interested in budget talks with the Government given that its initial requests for “pertinent” information was not honoured by the Finance Minister, Winston Jordan.

This is according to PPP’s Executive Member, Irfaan Ali.
In an interview with this newspaper yesterday, Ali pointed out that on several occasions, the People’s Progressive Party made requests to the office of the Finance Minister for significant pieces of Government documents so as to inform their talks.
To date, he said that these documents are yet to be submitted.
He said, “Since 2015, we wrote to the Finance Minister asking him for certain documents regarding the Public Sector Investment Programme. We also presented nine recommendations to help the farmers boost the industry and safeguard their livelihood. To date, we have heard nothing in relation to these recommendations from the Government.”
The politician added, “We even called on the government to implement all the projects we negotiated with the Indian Government in the US$50 million line of credit inclusive of the IT Centre of Excellence negotiated by the (former) PPP/C Government.
“The Government must realise by now that they also blundered badly on the Amaila Falls Hydro project and we are convinced that they will have to implement this project if we want to expand our economy.”
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee reminded that the PPP also pushed during the 2015 consultation process for Government to aggressively back on stream, the Low Carbon Development Strategy and implement the projects and programmes conceptualised under this program.

Ali who shadows the finance sector said that he even lobbied the government to ensure that the Amerindian livelihood programme be reinstated immediately as well as the reinstatement of the almost 2000 Amerindian youths fired by the coalition Government.
He added, “The hinterland airstrips that were cut out by this government must be completed and implemented immediately.”
The former minister said that “confidence cannot be restored with the continuous ethnic purge that is taking place in the Public Service. The loss of professional services and wanton firing of young people and experienced public officials based on political affiliation and ethnicity must be addressed as well.”
Ali surmised that the Finance Minister has refused to provide pertinent information to the PPP to inform their consultations and has also rejected its recommendations to improve the lives of the people.
He said, “So if we don’t have these documents and they are not using our ideas then what is the point of showing up for consultations? There is no point. Our requests have not been honoured. Instead, it has been treated with disrespect and until this is improved we would not be interested in any budget talks with this government. Their intentions are clearly insincere.”
It came as no surprise to Minister Jordan yesterday when the Opposition did not turn up for talks on the 2017 budget.
Jordan told this newspaper that he had extended an invitation to the PPP since December and when there was no acknowledgement of the letter, he got the clear picture that they were not interested. He recalled that the Opposition was also a no show for 2016 budget talks.
The Finance Minister said, “I expected that reaction from the Opposition…And let me just set the record straight, some of the documents they were asking for were already available and made public so there was no need to be requesting them from me.
On the other hand, there were other documents such as an IMF document that they asked me for which was not available at the time. Nevertheless, I would be happy if they made themselves available for the consultations but if they don’t then we will move forward. I don’t have time to be dealing with excuses.”
The economist said however that from time to time, some members of the Opposition do approach him on certain matters of national importance. As such, he would “not read too much into the Opposition’s antics in this regard.”
The Finance Minister insisted that the Government remains open to engaging the Opposition in discussions on the 2017 budget and those to follow.
He reiterated that his door “remains open for positive engagements with the PPP” that will take the Government and the country forward.
In the meantime, consultations with other stakeholders are continuing as scheduled by the Ministry of Finance.
Jordan also stated that the manner in which the national budget is prepared, rolled out and accounted for, will be characterised by stricter measures to ensure a level of transparency that has not been seen in over 20 years.
He emphasised that one of the measures to be seen quite soon in this regard is the national budget being presented before the start of the new fiscal year. He said that the 2017 budget is slated to be presented to the National Assembly in December.

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