My views on the 2021 budget

Feb 15, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

In this second take on the 2021 budget, I repeat: I like what is there. I appreciate that not everyone will be pleased, and that every wish cannot be fulfilled, I am surprised that some places and things didn’t make the grade. I highlight a few.

There was no second COVID-19 stimulus proposal. Though I have not seen the first one, a second stimulus is needed, and sorely by many Guyanese, at the family, cottage industry, and company levels. I think that, though a costly undertaking, it should have been among the higher priorities tabled. The next one is closer to home. A big chunk of billions has been earmarked for education, with some good plans and projects in mind. But it would have been gratifying to read of funds set aside for the old Central High School to be relocated and built on its own plot. This would be well-received by teachers and students, as a much-needed place of academic and sporting activities. I think that such would offer the staff and students, a place to be proud of, to nurture the above average to contribute to this society. This has been pending forever, and while I understand competing needs in other communities, I detect a near dereliction of responsibility. A billion should have been found for a modern facility for the old Central High, now dispatched to the educational boondocks. If I recall accurately, some government official did say that education held the key to our success and prosperity. A quality education for all students, to get the most from our better equipped students, starts with a quality facility. Its products could share in building a truly quality society.

Now for a few hiccups. I agree with relocating the Fire Service HQ from the nightmarish Stabroek Square. Yet Eccles is a bit on the far side from the highly populated places. I recognize central GT is out, completed new access roads is a difference maker, and that it came down to a tossup: heads win, tails another area loses. Well, there is always the comfort of no noise nuisance. Also, I learn that sugar is being further enriched with a couple billion more; I warn that that is going to trigger acute diabetes; a clear case of good money (borrowed) after bad to create more holes. I may have missed it, but a few dollars for bauxite and Linden would have signaled the concrete action of which I spoke before on that “One Guyana” vision of the president’s. Regrettably, it is real politick, and how victors favor communities and commodities cherished.

Separately, I am awed by the many billions allocated for works all over. I have to be a spoilsport and note that there is abundant room for cleverness and what I will be lenient and call ‘carelessness.’ I also trust that, when the time comes, the suddenly sharply probing and energized auditors will not revert to form with blindness, dimness, and self-imposed cluelessness. With all that building and developing occurring, I should form a construction company. I have one thing that trumps what the rest know of construction. It is encapsulated in one word: honesty. Giving Guyanese value for their tax money. I can do it; the others cannot.

Last, I have the blueprints done for three books, so I am considering approaching Hon. Minister Ramson for a handout (grant) to a poor struggling citizen from that GY$2.7B. Surely, he can spare some ‘fine change’ for a Guyanese, admittedly a troublesome one. I suggest that he does not check with the big oil man, or else my cork duck. So much more, but here I leave budgetary things.

Yours truly,
GHK Lall

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News