“One trillion spent and nothing to show!” – Gail Teixeira says Govt. ‘hard ears’

Dec 07, 2018 News

When the financial books, of the Coalition government, come to a close for 2018, it would have expended one trillion Guyana dollars. But what does it have to show for this in three years?
‘Nothing,’ was the response offered by Opposition Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira when she posed the question to her colleagues yesterday in the National Assembly.
Speaking on the fourth day of the budget debates, Teixeira said, “We are going through budget 2019 and we are hearing about all the interesting things to come, but I have some simple issues to raise. This is the fifth budget of this government and when it is approved, the total will be $1.3 trillion dollars… But what would we have benefitted from a trillion dollars in a short period of three and a half years?”

Opposition Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira

The politician said that the citizenry has never seen this kind of money being spent in such a short space of time.
“Where is the proof of the pudding? Where do we see the progress and the transformational projects? What is there to show for this spending, to show that we are going forward?”
Teixeira noted that the Government has landed itself in this position because it has refused to listen to the people.
She said, “Ministers have been ‘hard ears’ when it comes to the concerns of not only us, but the business community, the trade union movement, and you have been ‘hard ears’ to respond to what they have said. You come into the House with this bullyism and big ‘bradaar’ behaviour that accounts to no one but you…”
On this note, the Opposition Chief Whip reminded of the concerns raised by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which was disappointed in the government’s refusal to reduce the Excise tax on fuel for 2019.
Teixeira sided with the Chamber, while reminding that it was the very APNU+AFC Government, which told the House that the Guyana Power and Light had made a profit, yet the benefits are not passed on the public.
“A reduced tax rate would have made the lives of citizens a little better, but nothing was done. Yet, you come to the House and lecture about bringing the good life to all,” an impassioned Teixeira lamented.

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