Dear Editor,
Government Ministers are in the habit of saying one thing and doing exactly the opposite. I recall candidate Khemraj Ramjattan during the 2015 elections telling Berbicians that despite the rumors they’re hearing, the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) if elected, will not close any sugar factory. We all know how that turned out – three sugar estates closed and over 7000 workers were sent home without severance pay. President David Granger is no different. He says publicly he wants to work along with Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, but unilaterally appoints the head of the Guyana Elections Commission in violation of our Constitution. Now he tells the residents of Anna Regina, that the APNU Administration has its focus on serving not a portion of the people, but the entire country. I’m sure he failed to tell that to Ovid Morrison, the controversial Regional Executive Officer of Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) who stymied development in known People’s Progressive Party villages by starving them of much needed resources. But Granger’s speech in Anna Regina is more than just campaign rhetoric and deception, it is about downright dishonesty, and the blatant misuse of Government resources for political purposes.
Editor, the last time I was critical of the ruling of the Speaker of the National Assembly, I was admonished by His Honour, who asserted that a Member of Parliament has no right to criticise the Speaker inside or outside of Parliament. Not being satisfied with the scolding I had received; the Prime Minister promptly moves a motion to send me to the Privilege Committee to be sanctioned. So, I will not go that route again, I will merely lay out the facts here, and let your readers draw their own conclusions.
In the 2018 National Budget, the expenditure allocated for “Local Travel and Subsistence” was $2.154 billion. This is an extremely large increase of $732 million over the 2014 Budget of $1.422 billion.
Then under another line item in the 2018 Budget – “Other Transport, Travel, Postage”, $1.31 billion was allocated, compared to just $874.6 million in 2014 – an increase of $469 million.
Because Opposition parliamentarians were concerned that Ministers of Government were traveling excessively into the Hinterland doing political work under the guise of promoting social cohesion, on August 7 of this year, my parliamentary colleague, Pauline Sukhai-Campbell submitted an Oral Question without Notice to be asked of the Minister of Finance in Parliament the following day. The question was, “Could the Honourable Minister provide this National Assembly with the costs of expenditure by the Government Ministers and their staff travelling to interior locations in the last 12 months? The locations and purpose of each of these visits and the costs incurred? Please also identify how many chartered flights were used to these locations and costs incurred?”
Now, as Members of Parliament, it is our constitutional duty to have oversight of Government’s spending of the public purse. Yet, this question was disallowed by the Speaker of the National Assembly, “His Honour is of the view that your question is important, but not urgent and it does not relate to the business of today’s sitting.”
Not satisfied with the Speaker’s explanation, the same question was resubmitted as a Question on Notice to a Minister (of Finance ) on September 28th and disallowed again on the grounds that “the Minister of Finance is not responsible for the use of funds by other Ministers and their staff to travel to interior locations.” You get the picture?
Sincerely,
Harry Gill
PPP/C Member of
Parliament
