… says fiscal space created with B
transfer from GGMC
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has called on Government to reinstate the one month tax-free bonus that was traditionally given to members of the Disciplined Services and for this to be further extended to all public service employees, including those working in the sugar belt.
Jagdeo made the clarion call on Thursday, when he met with members of the local media corps at his party’s Freedom House Headquarters
Bharrat Jagdeo
, where he revealed that the measure called for is not beyond the reach of Government, since it recently and secretly transferred $8 billion from the accounts of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to the nation’s Consolidated Fund.
This, the Opposition Leader said, is enough money to have created the fiscal space to allow for the coalition A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government to reinstate the one-month tax-free bonus previously offered to the Disciple Services, namely the ranks of the Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Police Force, Guyana Fire Service and the Guyana Prison Service.
He said too that the one-month tax-free bonus should also be extended to all public servants that would have been recently subjected to a unilateral salary increase of between one and 10 per cent.
The former President said the measure could be announced separately or during the presentation of the 2017 Budget on Monday.
Secret transfer
Lamenting that the transfer of the large sum of money – $8 billion – was done in secret, the Opposition Leader indicated that should the money be paid over to the public servants and Disciplined Services members, it would inherently mean more disposable income for spending at a time when the nation is still in a deep economic decline.
He is of the opinion that the move will also serve to boost economic activity in the country.
The Opposition Leader also used the occasion to lament the unilateral increase that was handed out last month to public servants, saying the Administration has effectively been embarking on a course of destroying good industrial relations, since the Collective Bargaining Agreement process has effectively been abandoned.
Jagdeo recalled that when Government announced its one to 10 per cent salary increase for public servants, it was in violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
He said, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) was adumbrating its position since there is the fiscal space available, coupled with the fact that public servants did not receive from Government what it had been promised.
Distant world
Taking a swipe at Head of State David Granger, the Opposition Leader said the President seems to be living in a “distant world as though only ideal things are happening now and everything bad happened under the PPP/C.”
“Do it before the Budget or announce at it Budget time,” Jagdeo suggested since it will be “a major boost and will increase disposable income and bolster economic activities.”
Meanwhile, on the matter of the 2017 Budget to be presented on Monday by Finance Minister Winston Jordan, the Opposition Leader bemoaned the fact that his party was not a part of the preparatory consultations, by choice.
This obtained, according to Jagdeo, since the Government refused to give to the Opposition the relevant documentation and information such as revenue projections and sectoral policies among other pertinent information.
Jagdeo said this was critical to any meaningful participation on the part of the Opposition since the Opposition is cognisant of the fact that the ‘wish list’ for all and sundry cannot be met in any given Budget.
The PPP/C, he said, did not want to enter into any such meetings with just their “two long hands”. Jagdeo did use the opportunity to wish the Finance Minister well and said it is the hope of the PPP/C that measures will be included in the 2017 Budget to address the problems plaguing society, including security and improved livelihoods.
“We will support any measure that does this and will meet any of those objectives,” Jagdeo said, reminding that the broad objectives expected have already been outlined by none other than President David Granger.
Jagdeo opined that for Minister Jordan to present anything that falls short of what the President had outlined, then it would effectively mean that the nation had been duped.
Jagdeo said the PPP/C is looking to the Budget to see concrete measures and financial allocations to give effect to the objectives that had been outlined by President Granger.
