– the illusionary good life vs. the reality of the good life
Budget 2018 presented a concocted dream of a good life that is far from manifestation to reality by any stretch of the imagination. As described in last week’s edition, it is enveloped in a series of ‘fluff’ language, hardly anything of substance in it. In a nutshell, the document is a composition of 102 pages out of which only five pages addressed realistic matters. For example, 90 per cent of the ‘fluff language’ are things like the below extract from page 4 of the document:
“Mr. Speaker, our citizens want to own green jungles bursting with life and biodiversity, as well as modern urban structures; they want to be able to see the stars in the sky at night not filtered by smog; they wish to travel to work, school, home, and play without being stuck for hours in traffic jams or having to take days to get there; our citizens want good education, quality health care, fresh foods, their own homes, safe communities and towns, fair and efficient systems, and value for money on their tax dollars. Budget 2018 aims to deliver all of these improvements as we invite every Guyanese to create an inclusive path as the journey to the Good Life continues”.
To students who follow this column, the aforementioned extract is a classic example of ‘fluff language’. As much as possible in academia, this kind of writing does not take you anywhere, and thus you should seek to avoid writing like that from a critical thinking and analytical standpoint. In fact, you lose marks, or gain no mark whatsoever if, for instance, this was part of a thesis or an academic project. Nothing in the budget addressed a clearly defined vision and plan on how to achieve those dreams. It was as though someone was given a huge task to author a fairy tale story.
Moreover, what was found to be even more sickening is the level of ignorance being displayed by these policy-makers in the National Assembly. The quality of the budget debates was the poorest ever. Instead of one of the ministers of Government taking responsibility for her error in one of her speeches delivered earlier this year – confusing two Hindu religious holidays — ignorance was instead used to downplay such an embarrassing scenario. And more interestingly, this minister is holding the portfolio of the Education Sector.
A true leader leads by example. A good example of someone taking responsibility in the same house was the Opposition Leader when he misspelt the word ‘divide’ on his placard, and then immediately after, in his press conference which followed that very sitting, he made a bold statement, apologizing to the students of the nation and expressing his regret for such an error.
Having said that, let us now examine in a scholastic manner the measures and targets presented in the budget, and how effective these may turn out to be from the basis of the current policies and actions being pursued by the Government of Guyana.
The measures outlined in the budget in support of the administration’s Green agenda constitute only one element – that is, exemption of Excise Tax on hybrid vehicles. While this is a very good thing, it’s the only thing presented here, and thus it is very minimalistic. Therefore, one can rightly presume there is no real solid plan to effectively achieve a comprehensive ‘Green Agenda’.
As an example otherwise, China is investing US$360 billion on renewable energy by 2020, and is leading a global green revolution. China is the largest producer of solar power, and have installed — according to a World Economic Forum publication — more wind capacity than the U.S, India and Germany combined, and has the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant.
Measures in support of increasing workers’ income – supposedly to increase disposable income by extending to the Private Sector workers tax free travel allowances — again, are the only measures in this regard, and will have a very inconsequential effect on the economy. Travel allowance is a monetary benefit that only certain levels of employees enjoy, and this of course varies from organization to organization. It means that not all companies would have these kinds of policies or benefits; and more important to note, it is only applicable once per year.
Most often, employees either indeed use it to travel, or some persons use it otherwise – again, emphasizing one time only out of 365 days in a year. In this context, while it is well received, the intent of improving disposable income is virtually insignificant. An effective policy would have been to increase the income tax threshold to probably $75,000 with the aim of taking it to $100,000 by 2020 in keeping with the Coalition Government’s campaign promise, made by the Head of State himself.
With respect to the other measures and targets for 2018 – for example, a GDP target growth rate of 3.8 percent for 2018, this is far from attainable with what is happening to the sugar workers across the country. They will all fade into insignificance, because plunging thousands of sugar workers into poverty is going to be economically catastrophic for 2018. Double-digit unemployment rate is not a good economic indicator, and this rate will go up by another 3 per cent or so, and effectively, roughly 20 per cent of the working population will be adversely affected. An economic depression is imminent in 2018.
*The Author is the holder of a MSc. Degree in Business Management, with concentration in Global Finance, Financial Markets, Institutions & Banking from a UK university of international standing.
