What budget debate?

Mar 07, 2021 Editorial

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Kaieteur News – It should have come as no surprise to Guyanese budget watchers that the 2021 national budget was done and delivered four days early. We are surprised that the budget debate and process, or what passed for those, lasted so long, since it became extremely clear that the clashing members of Guyana’s National Assembly could barely stand the sight and sound of each other; as a primer, it does not bode well for things to come.
The 2021 budget process and embedded budget debate, if it can be called that, were forgettable from the ugly barbarism that happened in the earlier stages, and from which there was not much way of determined recovery and improvement. As far as we are concerned, not even a pretense at corrective efforts for higher standards was attempted by our lawmakers, many of whom now stand as confirmed lawbreakers. This year’s budget season was not merely simply forgettable, it was also memorable. It was memorable for what should have taken place, but didn’t; where matters under review and the associated individual and group conduct never rose from the lip of the gutter, or out of the lips of those who call themselves parliamentarians without a trace of embarrassment or remorse.
When accumulated, serious questions could be raised as to the credibility of the process, the quality of the debates, and both the quality and credibility of the honourable members involved. They dishonoured themselves, and tainted all of us with the quality of the final result. The first question we put before the public is this one: did the Guyanese people receive their money’s worth for the trust and confidence they placed in their elected representatives? Here is a second: Did Guyanese, regardless of political persuasion, through honest and sustained effort, obtain full measure from those they voted for, who turned out to be nothing other than coarse and the most common class of agents?
In answer to both questions, we say a loud and resounding: NO!
The times and circumstances and the staggering sums involved, called for-nay, demanded-probing, intense, and tireless debating. All were largely lacking, thunderously inaudible, glitteringly unseen. Instead, and for the most part, there seemed to be a pro forma display of interest, a lackluster manifestation of spirit, in the things and areas that should have mattered, that do mean something to all Guyanese. While citizens waited for deep and keenly debated engagements (locking of horns) on the material issues, they were treated to, and were forced to settle for what amounted to which side and which member could urinate farther than the other across the aisle. This was the vulgar absurdity to which Guyana’s national budget process and debate was reduced to, and with the grandest of satisfactions. The 2021 budget process boiled down to this: position taken, point proven, matter over; there were few, if any, innocents.
Indeed, the budget interval concluded four days early. But that is not a feather in anybody’s cap, something to bring preening, or one over which the sensible and deep thinker could be proud. For what was observed, and where any unbiased review leads, is that the sum of the budget deliberations was the torture of going through the motions, keeping up appearances, fixing an eye on the clock all the time, and planting a foot outside the door. They couldn’t wait to get away from each other, so revolting they had become in the presence of each other.
In some respects, the deplorable kept repeating itself though interruptions and suspensions, walking out and drowning out. The opposition cannot be spared here, though there is more than enough madness and blame to coat each and every member of the house several fold. The opposition cannot forget (we do not allow it to) that some 217,000 Guyanese citizens voted for it. Its members must remember that each has, in letter and spirit, a constitutional, political, and personal obligation to step forward and deliver on every occasion; the ingredients of good governance mandate that it does so, which it is yet to do. The PPP did so for 28 years under the grimmest of circumstances. Yet here we are, with only just over a half year into the new government, and the opposition is a shadow of a shadow. The opposition has a role, the leading one, to apply unrelenting pressure to bring exposure to the government of the day, through the shortcomings and mysteries of the national budget. This was barely executed in periodic drips and drabs. It is termed holding the feet of the government to the fire. It must feel the higher and higher temperatures without letup. This, too, was missing in action, with the budget process, with Guyana at large being worse off for it.
The opposition efforts were so futile and impotent that when it should have been asking the hard pointed questions and insisting upon clear answers, it was content to resort to dramatics and cleverness, which served no conceivable purpose. It gave the PPP government numerous free passes, of which we single out only a few of them that were not tabled. First, what was underlying the increase in funding for the First Lady’s office? Second, what is the rationale behind the budgeted numbers for the Childcare Protection Agency? Third, how about more insights into the proposed funding of the national budget, and the degree of borrowings? And fourth, what are the rationalizations behind the slew of big-ticket items? This is part of what holding government accountable means at its core.
Guyanese are the ones who will be saddled with the immense debt loads; they deserve the kind of light that comes from inspired and inspiring representation from the opposition. This was not evident, as it was not delivered; citizens did not get any of that from the opposition. The PPP government was only too delighted to push the opposition’s buttons, and go along with what was a total charade. In truth, it was part vaudeville, and in many parts of parliamentary porn. The latter is one aspect of the 2021 budget that will live in infamy, and inseparably in the memory of many.
We have all been condemned to be eyewitnesses to verbal spit bubbles within a pandemic driven physical bubble with what took place in parliament and this so-called budget debate. It was a long sad interlude; this country could be in for longer, much sadder times.

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