Budget adds further burdens on Guyanese – FITUG

The proposed fee increases for the 2017 Budget, coupled with over 100 taxes being increased in recent months has brought on “new pressures” to the Guyanese populace including workers, pensioners and other ordinary citizens who stand to face the brunt of the burdens.

This is the contention of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) which noted on Tuesday that upon its examination of next year’s Budget, it has concluded that Government has “woefully fallen short” of its promise of “Delivering the Good Life to All Guyanese”.

“Budget 2017 puts the masses of Guyanese at a severe disadvantage and will certainly worsen the already bad social conditions in the country,” FITUG stated.

In fact, the union group expressed that the Budget will only serve to engender even “greater hardships on our already overburdened working-class”.

Chief among the concerns raised by the body included the introduction of Value Added Tax (TAX) on electricity and water; the reduction in the number of VAT exempt and zero-rated items which will impact medical supplies and services, and treatments; the introduction of an environmental tax; the increases in the costs of passports; the introduction of fees for TIN certificates; the massive increases in the costs for a number of licences, fees and penalties and the increase in the departure tax.

“The latest burdens to be added comes just a few months after the Government increased about one hundred and forty (140) taxes, some as high as 1,200 per cent. Worst yet is that more are still to come, such as the introduction of parking meters (In Georgetown) and the rumoured increases of rates and taxes, land lease fees and the Demerara Harbour Bridge tolls,” FITUG highlighted.

FITUG has also determined that the Budget is “sorely lacking”, noting that there are “hardly any specific details or policies” to address the country’s rising rate of unemployment.

“Moreover, the Federation was also dismayed to learn that the Budget did not address, in a positive way, the plight of the sugar workers. For two years now, thousands of workers and their families are being forced to contend with no pay increases. That aside, the workers are faced with other assaults on their rights and benefits. In the face of such denials, it is damning that large sums are being found to fund super-salaried Government officials and the top echelons of the sugar industry and, possibly, soon a former high office holder,” the statement read.

It was further pointed out that Budget 2017’s “draconian measures” can be seen as an anti-working class Budget. The Federation further noted that this current Budget will “undo many of the positive gains made in the past years” and serve to push many ordinary Guyanese into an “impoverished state”. FITUG urged the President David Granger-led Administration to re-look, with a view to rescind, the many measures which will be “severe blows on and badly hurt the people, especially the poor and working people of our country.” As the Budget debates got underway earlier this week, Chairman of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Irfaan Ali, called on Government to immediately withdraw the Budget. Ali had further suggested that Government would do well to sit with the Opposition Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) in order to craft a better Budget. He further expressed that the Budget presented was littered with inaccuracies regarding economic performance and is saturated with an extensive range of new punitive taxes.