Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 20, 2009 News
Shadow Finance Minister, Winston Murray, returned to the National Assembly on Wednesday and delivered a severe thrashing to the 2009 budget presented by Dr Ashni Singh, seeking to point out that the Minister improperly positioned some figures in the Budget and misrepresented the deficit of the country.
According to Murray, the misrepresentation was achieved by improperly describing capital inflows.
“These inflows are essentially made up of external grants and loans, the result of our begging and borrowing efforts.”
He said that if monies were to be properly categorised, then Current Expenditure would be $82.4B, Capital Expenditure is $46.5B, Current Revenue is $90.3B, less Current Account Surplus of $7.9B.
This, according to Murray, reflects a true overall deficit of $38.6B.
He said that, given the revised figures, approximately 30 percent of the government’s proposed expenditure is dependent on our ability to achieve the targets set for soliciting to obtain grants or borrowing to finance capital works.
No mention of 2007 and 2008 projects
The Shadow Finance Minister also described as disappointing the fact that the Minister did not make mention of some projects listed for 2007 and 2008, and that the nation was owed an update on any such progress.
According to Murray, in the 2008 budget speech under the caption ‘Tax Reform and Tax Administration’, the Minister had promised that in 2008 there would have been the conducting of a study of the country’s tax system to determine how further tax reform could be implemented.
Murray pointed out that in outlining the agenda for 2009 the Minister made no mention whatsoever of the furtherance of the tax reform study.
“What are we, as representatives of the people, and what is the nation to make of this is anybody’s guess…Is it that the project has been dropped altogether, or has it been put on the backburner, never to see the light of day?”
Murray told the House that his party believed that that such a project must be of the highest priority if Guyana is to be an attractive investment destination, “if workers are to be relieved of a 33.3 per cent tax burden once the threshold of $35,000 per month is passed, and if all who earn taxable income are to pay their fair share of taxes”.
Murray also reminded the House of the promised consideration of the possibility of establishing an offshore financial sector in Guyana.
“We were told that such a sector, properly regulated, had the potential to contribute to growth in Guyana…We were told that the technical work has commenced and will advance during this year… Surely the Minister owes the nation an update on this potential contributor to growth.”
Value for money
The Finance Minister then sought to point out that simply proclaiming year after year that the government was announcing the largest budget ever was no end in itself.
He posited that the expenditure has to be scrutinised and examined to see whether it would benefit the citizens of the country whose money would largely have financed it.
Murray pointed out that citizens would seek to question whether their taxes are being spent wisely and they were getting value for money, further if there was transparency and full accountability for monies spent.
“It did not escape my attention that in 2008 the sum of $108M was earmarked for airstrips at Leguan and Wakenaam along with rehabilitation of the airstrip at Baramita… Obviously the projects for the airstrips at Leguan and Wakenaam did not materialise as they are repeated for 2009… It think it is a cynical joke to propose such a project when the citizens of Leguan are more concerned about proper beds at the cottage hospital, about availability of drugs and other medicines at the facility, about the reliability and timeliness of the ferry service, and about better drainage and irrigation facilities.”
Murray also sought to question the manner in which the budget was presented by the Budget in an attempt to deceive the nation.
He added that right at the beginning the Minister casts the Budget in the framework of the 30 months since the last elections.
“This is a convenience that has allowed him to interpret performance over this period as though it were a trend.”
Murray sought to expand on his assertion by referring to Dr Singh’s presentation when he said: “Since then the economy has grown steadily and substantially, with sectors that were previously considered non-traditional demonstrating increasing strength and buoyancy.”
The Shadow Finance Minister was adamant that his party could not allow the Minister of Finance to create an erroneous public impression of the performance of the economy under the stewardship of the PPP/C Government in office.
“The PPP/C has had the reins of Government for 16 clear years, and it would be wholly misleading to handpick the last three through the signpost of an election to determine the Government’s performance.”
Objective observers of the economic performance of Guyana since 1993 would agree that the relatively healthy performance of the economy between 1993 and 1997 was due, in the main, to the continued momentum created by the Desmond Hoyte administration’s Economic Recovery Programme, Murray said.
He even argued that if those years are discounted then for the eleven years 1998 to 2008 the economy grew at an average of 1.8 percent per annum, and for three of those eleven years, namely 1998, 2000 and 2003, the economy contracted.
“When, therefore, one looks at the period as a whole a reasonable conclusion is that the economy has really been stagnant… To get an even better understanding of where we are as against where we ought to be, we should use the National Development Strategy as a point of reference.”
In that programme it is stated: “If all our strategies are followed, it is forecast that the average annual growth of the country’s Gross Domestic Product between 2001 and 2010 would be nine percent… We are convinced that, even if the strategies are not followed optimally, at the very worst, barring a series of cataclysms, the average GDP growth would be of the order of six percent.”
Murray added that the document stated that, even if the country performed well by 2010, “we could not be described as an affluent society, that we would still be far from the forefront of even the developing countries, though our standard of living and quality of life would have been much improved”.
He added that during the period 2001 to 2008 GDP grew at an annual rate of just under 2.5 percent, which was less than half of the 6 percent per annum that should have been the growth “barring cataclysms, events of which I can only think of the floods of 2005 as being one”.
He said then that the logical inference is that there has been no really significant improvement in standard of living and quality of life.
In the context of the prevailing international financial crisis Murray sought to remind the House that Guyana was a country with an open economy.
“We rely on international trade (exports and imports) and foreign direct investment also to fuel economic growth.” Against that background Murray sought to question the reliability of the projected growth rate.
“I know that what I have said here today is hardly the ringing endorsement the Government may have been hoping for on its budget… But I believe we owe it to the Guyanese people to temper the Minister’s optimism with a strong dose of realism… I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.”
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