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Foreign trade programme needs more funding – Teixeira

Dec 23, 2016 News

Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira strongly believes that more needs to be done to advance the development of the foreign trade programme within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Teixeira opined that it is disappointing to see in the 2017 budget that there have been significant reductions in staffing of the programme and funding.
Teixeira made these comments during the consideration of the 2017 estimates of revenue and expenditure for the budget on Tuesday. She informed the subject Minister, Carl Greenidge that in 2016 the foreign trade programme benefited from a staff of 63, but has decreased to three persons for 2017, and the single administrative staff for the programme remains the same.
The opposition member said that the proposal for 2017 is disappointing since during the last budget debate it was agreed that the programme should be beefed up. She said, “It (the programme) is still I believe, under-supported by finances and resources.”
According to Greenidge, in his response, there has been the transfer of staff to other programmes, which accounts for the reduction in numbers. He said too, that one of the reasons responsible for the reduced amount in funds allocated to the programme is that one of the directors has also been transferred.
He added that the employment of technicians trained in foreign trade is a matter which is engaging his ministry and the Public Service Commission. Greenidge said that some of the officers are presently undertaking work in trade under the category of Foreign Service officers under another programme, also justifying the reduction in funds allocated to the development of foreign trade policy.
Based on the Minister’s explanation, Teixeira said that it is hard to get a proper sense of how much the Ministry is spending to deal with trade issues.
“One cannot get a clear a picture as to what is in the budget so that we can deal with the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states), CARICOM and bilateral, UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) and everything else.”
According to Greenidge, the reason for having officers under different programmes resulted from the structure which the government inherited, which was placing a strain on the ministry. He said that he hopes a much easier mechanism can be developed to deal with the matters to ensure the programme is well established.
Teixeira reiterated her point, saying that under the new system it is hard to measure what the country is doing with its foreign trade negotiations with countries such as Mexico and Cuba. “I know for example in Cuba, a rice farmer is negotiating with the Cuban government to deal with rice, but it is not going through the Guyana Rice Development Board, and it appears to be sub-financed. My discomfort with this is that this is supposed to be foreign trade dealing, with this as the guardian and custodian.”
The Opposition Chief Whip asked the Minister if he was satisfied with the $1.6M increase in funds allocated to the programme. In 2016 $33.685M was allocated and in 2017 $35.299M has been approved.
According to Greenidge, the figure shown in the estimates represents what has been requested by the agency with consideration of all the constraints which the programme would have previously experienced.

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