Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 11, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
For some reason I like the German word, “untergang” more than its English equivalent, “downfall.” “Der Untergang” is the name of a German-made movie on the downfall of Adolf Hitler. This is a highly rated movie that constitutes one of the best films of all time on the fall of Nazi Germany. Now that the 2017 budget is out of the way, it is relevant to ask; why did the APNU+AFC coalition embark on such an unpleasant pathway. Will this budget be the untergang of this shaky government?
Let me get one thing out of the way before I proceed. I am not enamoured with this budget. Some of its aspects are downright insulting, insensitive and oppressive. I will expand on all three of these adjectives. Insulting – a campaign promise was to lower VAT. You chose to do that by a mere two percent, then went and put VAT on a wide range of things including medical services, water, electricity and a few more items.. You think people are so stupid that they cannot see that you gave with one hand and took it back with the other.
Insensitive – in this area you have to listen to the ministerial justifications for the increases. One is that poor people do not go to private hospitals. This is contempt for the working people. Poor people will beg, steal and borrow to save the lives of the members of their family, if they know that the Georgetown Hospital will endanger their lives. From the President through to the Prime Minister and right down to the Ministers, they have no clue as to what Guyana is. And what is the physiology and biology of this nation. These people are living in a world of delusions.
If poor people do not go to private hospitals, then the same argument applies to private schools. Parents would go to desperate levels to secure their children’s education. Education is the surest, fastest and most definitive way of getting out of poverty. David Granger, Moses Nagamootoo and the rest of their government do not have a clue as to how people break their backs to send their kids to private school. In justifying VAT on water, one Minister excluded the poorer folks, because she says that you have to have plenty black tanks to burn more than $1500 a month. That is not true.
Water is expensive. Ordinary people pay that for the ordinary use of water. And how do I know that? Because I have friends and relatives that are not in the middle class category. It is just me, my wife and kid at home, and my water bill is always over $1500. Yes, I have several black tanks but it is not the amount of tanks, it is how much of the water in the tanks you use each month. I do not use that amount to burn $1500. The fact is that water is expensive.
We come now to electricity. I am rejecting the explanation that eighty percent of GPL customers burn less than $10, 000 monthly. I would like to see the evidence. I know I burn $15, 000 for just a few lights, a television and a fridge. The washing machine is used once weekly. I have no air-conditioning sets. Only one television set is mostly on. I have no stereo system in my house. I am saying most unambiguously, lots of ordinary workers in this country burn more than $10, 000 monthly in electricity.
Oppressive – this needs no explanation. Anyone in this entire world that does not accept that when the business classes are taxed, prices go up, is completely naïve. That is the way of the world. That is life and it will be like that forever. Those firms that have to pay VAT on electricity and water are simply going to pass it on to the consumers. That black pudding and those French fries that we buy often are going to cost more. Oops! Sorry for the mistake! Poor folks do not eat black pudding and French fries. Poorer folks eat sugar cake and sugar is not “vatted.”
But do not deceive yourself. Sugar and milk may be “vatted” in next year’s budget. But then again, what is wrong with taxing milk; after all, poor people do not engage in the luxury of buying ice-cream.
The 2017 Budget tells the story of a group of politicians that have lost their way, maybe from day one. It is such a pity that the once sadistic and discredited PPP has come back to life, thanks to the 2017 Budget. This is one of history’s most tragic lands.
Listen to the man that is throwing Guyanese bright future away
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