Supplementary budget

Dec 08, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It might be argued that the only thing positive, straight, and true about Supplementary Budgets in Guyana is that they are official, they are on paper, and they pass through parliament. Other than that, a whole series of questions and concerns can be raised about their legitimacy, sometimes even their necessity, given what becomes of the billions of dollars that are approved under the cover of these kinds of budgets.

It is money, money, and more money. There is money for this, and then for that, for over here, and next over there. Unlike previous times, millions are available from lending institutions due to Guyana’s discovery of oil, which gives the PPPC Government money at its fingertips than any prior government. Few are the government ministries, and State agencies, that do not share in the money action that are usually late in the year. The timing is not accidental, but part of the deliberate plotting by one government after another in Guyana and this PPPC Government is the master of the game of Supplementary Budgets. In fact, this current PPPC Government is so clever with Supplementary Budgets that it can’t help guzzling from that trough to suit its visions and addictions. The last has to do with the irresistible nature of taxpayers’ money.

Yearly, there are bigger and bigger national budgets, followed by tens of billions in Supplementary Budgets with huge areas, and many State sectors, here still in the same stagnant place. The more that it is earmarked in Parliament for budgets, the more Guyanese fall behind, have little to show for the dollars spent lavishly, while the PPPC boys and girls have a grand time. The PPPC of before, the PNC even before that, and the APNU+AFC all had their turn, and with worse and worse results always dogging Guyanese looking for better.

This Supplementary Budget in December 2022 has a cool billion for GuySuCo and to sweeten those who use the sugar belt as a clever camouflage for their predations from the dollars that continuously flow in that failed entity to prop it up. The political and corporate ranks have a feast, and little to justify the billions keeping the GuySuCo boat afloat. The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority was the beneficiary of another $2B and instead of remedial flood works that can help citizens and communities stay dry, and the prices of farm products lower, it is the other way around. The question is what Guyanese are getting for all these billions approved, and spent.

The case may be made that without these billions and extra billions, farming and other communities would be worse off in times of heavy rainfall, which contribute to extended and prolonged flooding. Our position, however, is though that may be so, we should be getting more from all these billions of dollars budgeted at different times of the year. The recent Supplementary Budget of $47B plus adds to the national budget that was at a record of close to $600B for this year. A little drilling down into the numbers confirm that the PPPC Government just awarded itself and its cabal of insiders something similar to what public servants are to receive, meaning, almost 8%.

On an annual basis, and like clockwork, the audit reports come about the usual litany of budgeted monies spent, but some of which are either not booked, or the books disappear without a trace. There are no records to examine, and no people to interrogate. Public works completed at great expense to the taxpayers are constantly being “fixed”, or through what is now gaining increasing traction in the form of additions, which nobody had the wisdom to think of before. The Supplementary budgets are notable for coming late in the year when many matters with financial significance can be slipped under the noses of Guyanese busy with holiday priorities. They are also noteworthy in that they are stuffed with a lot of pork that adds to the already thick layers of fat in these budget exercises that enrich the rich, and cheat the taxpayers. This is how the financial shams and scams continue unchecked and unchanged, with politicians and their cronies ripping this country apart.

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