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Budget ceiling – the latest confirmed how things will be

Jan 30, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Guyanese should never be amazed at the audacity and arrogance of the current PPP government; I have been there for the longest time. Those two recent Orders placed before the House of the People to increase the budget ceiling, stand as confirming testimony of how PPP leaders operate and conduct the business of this country today and what they hang over the nation’s head.
I will not quantity or offer comments specific to what was recently brought before the National Assembly by the Hon. Minister responsible for Finance in the Office of the President, which circuitous arrangement I hope that I got right. But I will tender this, and in a measured manner, so that a sober pausing will come, and still more thoughtful probing will follow. What the Hon. Minister put before the legislature is very specific, regarding the numbers envisioned that are going to be needed to assist in riding the tides of the past, and the challenges from and visions for the future. That cumulative proposed addition of six hundred billion dollars to the nation’s debt ceiling is not spare change or beer money; for those associated percentages choke in the contemplation, and especially since they have all been packaged in one overpowering dose. It is like rushing forward and diving into the unknown (think COVID-19 pandemic vaccine) and all in one heavy shot right from the get-go. It is almost too much for the mind to manage.
Editor, I agree that much damage was inflicted by the shenanigans of the last government, but I am watching and learning how those are being amplified to justify in part the extravagant (some may say obscene budget sums for domestic and foreign debt ceilings). I sense the rafters are being removed, and Guyanese are going to get soaking wet with debt and sick from the storms that could come. I say this because, beyond any doubt, the PPP government is placing its borrowing eggs in relation to the offset of a single basket. That basket is oil, and anticipated oil revenue streams, that promise the enriching and regal. They conveniently forget that the oil market is volatile and cyclical, and that the downdrafts can be long and draining. That is when that debt ceiling, which will be approved along straight party lines, is going to trap and hold hostage Guyanese under conditions not to be pondered today.
Separately, it is noteworthy that the PPP, via this debt ceiling exercise in the National Assembly, is clear and open with what it wants and how it desires to make good on its visions. What is also noteworthy and stands in stark contrast, is that government leaders have been neither clear nor open, in the least, on the very underpinnings of what will be used to collateralize and float that increased debt ceiling, and all of its related expensive servicing. His Excellency, President Ali has not been clear or open, merely stingy and sneaky with any information sharing on oil projects, oil reports, oil reviews, and oil developments. His comrade in arms, or commander in chief, the Hon. Vice President, also has been incomparably exemplary in walking between raindrops, dancing on pinheads, and shrinking and skulking from anything that should be disclosed to the Guyanese public on the nation’s oil activities, as a simple issue of their need to know. Both the President and Vice President, through the minister responsible for finance, tell us a mouthful and the potentially bone crushing about debt ceilings. But as matters relate to the real stories behind all that is going on with this oil, they have mostly been utterly silent. They release what is pleasing to them; they share what does no harm to their hidden interests; and, by those same tokens, they conceal the bulk of the details, as to what is being done right, what is suspected to be all wrong, and of which there are no intentions to cure.
Because of all this, one is hard pressed to welcome still this oil of ours as a blessing, not when it is being rapidly and doggedly converted into a confirmed curse, thanks to the underhanded actions of the PPP government, with tacit assistance from what is now a lost and ramshackle opposition. I would strongly suggest that Guyanese manage themselves as to what they should expect from this fossil fable of ours, which may turn out to be just that in the long run.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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