…came the revelations
This Government will never learn, will it? But more importantly, will their supporters who put them there ever learn? The Government, after all, can be seen as their agent and they’re responsible for all its actions. But back to the Government which even their principals can’t remove until 2020 – by which time your Eyewitness hopes the eyes of the latter will approach 2020!!
Here it is, during the debate on Budget 2017, the Finance Minister had just been unfrocked for sleights of hand with VAT that’d make a three-card hustler blush in shame! The Health Minister had just been found playing fast and loose – veeeery loose! – with the truth on his favourite pharma warehouse. The Agri Minister had been exposed for throwing sugar to the dogs. The Education Minister ducking that he was a Director of HDI collecting monies for Jubilee Park. And so on and so forth…
So you’d think these worthies would realise they’d better come clean and save themselves the blushes, wouldn’t you? Not THIS lot! ‘Cause in the Budget wrapping-up session, some of the new revelations were so outrageous, they exposed nothing but utter contempt for the Guyanese people. And in a burst of poetic justice, they were exposed. After all the taxes they imposed on the poor – even on water!! – because they claimed money had to be found to give Guyanese the “good life” – how could they not reveal earlier they needed FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS to pay the private company HDI that was supposed to collect donations for Jubilee Park?? It’s not as if they could overlook spending such a humongous sum – especially when the aforementioned Education Minister was defrocked as per the above-mentioned detail.
When will this EYEPASS on Guyanese stop? First, the private company was formed months after it began collecting donations to finance the ENTIRE Jubilee Park. Then it was registered WITH SECRET DIRECTORS. Then the Government had to step in and spend some FOUR HUNDRED MILLION to complete the lagging project?? And this is why the taxpayers of this country had taxes on water and electricity imposed? To pay for private spending where there were no bidding or controls?
From the kind of wood we saw used for the stands, your Eyewitness shudders to think what else was slid under the table…er…stands! For the record, from the very beginning your humble Eyewitness asserted eventually Guyanese taxpayers would end up forking out a BILLION dollars for Jubilee Park.
Which, like London Bridge, is already falling down!!
…GPL toes the line
Seeking to buttress the Finance Minister’s assertion that poor folks won’t have to shell out the 14 per cent VAT on electricity because they don’t use more than $10,000 electricity monthly, GPL announced that 80 per cent of its customers fit that bill. Well, right off the bat, your Eyewitness had some severe problems with this obvious brown-nosing statement by GPL.
First of all, GPL itself has been complaining that massive quantities of electricity – amounting to some 20 per cent+ of all GPL’s generating output – is stolen!! This explains why a huge chunk of the folks pays below $10,000. They’re thiefing! And the thing is, this electricity is stolen with the full knowledge of the ubiquitous meter readers GPL employs!
Then there’s those 9000+ households over in Linden who should pay over $16,000 monthly (average 280KW usage) but actually pay $1500 because of the $3 billion subsidy. Bet you they included in the 80 per cent!
All this means more people will thief electricity, 90 per cent will now pay less that $10,000!
And 10 per cent Peter will pay for 90 per cent Paul!
…the “new brand” SUV is exposed
Well we all know why the $20 million “new brand” SUV for AG Williams was hidden in the budget. After a TAX FREE salary of $2 million monthly, why should he use a used SUV?
