What budget debates?

Feb 06, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

The parliamentary 2022 budget debates have just ended. If those are what passes for debates locally, then I am Winston Churchill. Debates, they were not; so, let’s get rid of that immediately. Given what took place, what was dumped in the austere confines of the National Assembly, they were more like good ole Guyanese ‘buse-down and cuss-out. It is a good thing that the debates unravelled on the East Coast, for if they had taken place in the Stabroek vicinity, many citizens might have mistaken them for marketplace squalls, such was their quality.
The first thing I say is that the debates saw a PPP/C Government supremely confident in its one-seat majority, hence its invincibility, which made the outcome of the debates a foregone conclusion, no matter the wisdom or intellectual resonance put forward by the opposition. From the government benches, I got the sense that it was about getting even, twisting the knife, and ramming home its advantage, so untouchable it was in the ironclad guarantee of its one-seat edge. Unlike the APNU+AFC, there was not going to be any defections, due to conscience or convictions. There doesn’t appear to be much of either in government circles.
Government members got the ball rolling with a vengeance, when the issue of oil money in the budget came up. It began with crassness and vacuousness through what sounded like ‘yu’all will never get your hands on that oil money.’ It was an indicator of things to come in what was a continuous roll of days with the crude and rude, and of men and women not even bothering to manifest that they are capable of restraint in their pronouncements and possessing some smidgen of self-respect. After all, these parliamentary contributions are widely followed because of the way that communications have advanced in today’s world. Later, another bellicose utterance came from another member, where the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) finalised by the prior Coalition administration was declared “the worst crime committed against Guyanese.”
The owner of that flighty hyperbole instance was the Hon. Minister of Natural Resources, one of the newer and younger faces in this reincarnated PPP/C parliamentary lineup. One would have expected better, more of the cool and clinically cerebral, from someone with a background as a lecturer at the nation’s highest institution of learning. I regret, am ashamed, to say that this was par for the course, with the newer and younger ones out to prove that they can outdo in partisan zeal and incendiary zest their older, more veteran comrades in the government.
Expectations ran high for oratorical fireworks from the likes of members and ministers Charles Ramson, Jr., Susan Fernandes, and Nigel Dharamlall, who were all damp squibs, confirmed duds. The first flattered to deceive and couldn’t hold-up on his own; the lady minister forgot to remember that she has to deliver after the toothpaste smiles, and the last gentleman of the house (don’t ask what kind) was well pleased to revel in the mud and swill. He, who had waxed loud about sending judges in Guyana’s judiciary system packing, turned out to be the crassest of them all, with a parliamentary exhibition that was part an oral belly dance, and part a verbal striptease, that laid bare his limitations and the luridness to which Guyana’s parliament is subjected to nowadays.
It should be enlightening, and not have escaped the attention of watchful Guyanese, that things got so bad, so low, and so dismal in government pews that the Vice President was forced to the unprecedented. The big man was compelled to interrupt his overflowing schedule, and hold a news conference in the middle of the debates (imagine that!) to enlighten on the innards of the budget. It was obvious that his younger colleagues did not put in extensive time with the necessary homework, so that they were well-equipped to do justice to the budget debates, and give Guyanese some value for their trust, and a little comfort that the people in parliament are serious in how they go about the important business involving hundreds of billions of their, the taxpayers’, money. For the younger government members, it was all a peacock show, with considerable preening and wasting of time on their part. It was that they knew that whatever was said and done, the debates were all over before the first word was uttered at the Conference Centre, so they let their hair hang down and engaged in rollicking exhibitionism.
Another noteworthy feature of the debates was that mainstream media, the independent segment, gave much space to the Opposition members’ presentations. Unfamiliar faces and names like Juretha Fernandes and Vinceroy Jordan came into their own with sober and probing contributions that indicated much time spent studying the areas for which they provided shadow coverage. In addition, David Patterson and Amanza Walton-Desir were examples of focusing on the issues at hand, and not getting carried away by the crudities and vapidities that became the order of the day. In aggregate, this says a lot, given the opposition’s known struggles and other weaknesses; and as it attempts to regain some much-needed credibility and regard. Deputy Speaker Shuman, that gliding presence, reported threats by the opposition; if credible, deplorable, but now part of the savaging parliamentary scrums.
Editor, my position is simple on what belong in debates and what is out of bounds. Things must be kept clean, on topic, with supporting numbers, occasional duelling oratorical sizzle and nuanced insults, from those so capable, and much overall substance. The pristine precinct of the House of Commons is my next stop.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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