In its book of promises – mostly unkept so far – Team Granger promised the nation in 2015 that it will “…Establish a National Assembly Budget Office”. Was this another of their many “WHOPPERS TO WIN”?
Since independence, too many ruling politicians in Guyana walked around with the false perception that the people’s intelligence can be played with. Do you remember Burnham with his empty sloganeering of “yu’ want hydro or yu’ want G$14 a day…”. He ended up giving the people hydrocele with the highest per capita debt levels in the entire Caribbean by the time he died. The people never forgave him for such misdeeds and that is why his legacy is in such tatters compared to Dr Jagan.
I can also recall the swearing-in speech by Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo in 2015, where he made a vow to the public “to bring about constitutional change”. Three years on and we are still years away from any tangible progress on constitutional reform. Forgive my rudeness, but the people have seen enough political rubberstamps in their lives and they do not have an appetite for more. History will also be very unkind to Nagamootoo.
Almost 70 per cent of this Granger term is now over and yet they are still making it up as they go along, in spite of them having a political manifesto in 2015. Where are the deliverables? These days, this Granger regime has been reduced to a Government of distortion, exaggeration, misrepresentation, deception, half-truth, and overstatements. You have to be a total political fool or totally aloft and isolated from reality to think that you can win elections in 2020 with such a political track record.
After an era of parliamentary proroguement, which the Guyanese people rejected in 2014, the People’s National Congress (PNC) and its partners put out some nice sounds and made some palatable promises on the 2015 campaign and it made sense then. But when the rubber hit the road and they were called upon to deliver, they crumbled like “dry biscuit in hot tea”. How difficult is it to establish a parliamentary budget office? The people fell for these con artists in 2015, but as the wiser people say “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and shame on me”. You bet your last dollar I, like thousands of others are ready to invest all our energies to expose and oppose this fake government so that we do not have more of this level of executive mediocrity come 2021.
The PNC complained bitterly about financial excesses under the People’s Progressive Party and promised the people at the very first opportunity; they will launch into their book of promises and establish a “government of national unity” in Mr Granger’s words. You be the judge! After three years, do you see a Government of national unity in Guyana? Actually, Guyana is having one of its worse social cohesion crises in its history in the year 2018.
In the books of the majority of the people, there is no reason to trust President David Granger, his Ministers, his party (the PNC), the chosen vehicle for the political scam (the A Partnership for National Unity) and even the window dressings in the room (like the Alliance For Change). It is showing and that is why the poll from February 2018 revealed a popularity rating for the APNU/PNC/AFC cabal at 38 per cent and diving I am told. More and more people are waking up to the reality that their pockets are emptier since the arrival of Team Granger and only a small elite closely associated with the ruling cabal are reaping the benefits from the Treasury.
A parliamentary budget office has the responsibility to provide independent analysis to Parliament about trends in the national economy, the state of the nation’s finances and the estimates of the Government, and upon request from a committee or parliamentarian, to estimate the financial cost of any proposal for matters over which Parliament has jurisdiction. This is the kinds of checks and balances desperately needed in banana republics to ensure the maximum leader behave ethically. Any President committed to a principle of clean governance would have rushed to establish such an institution since it helps him or her to manage his Ministers when it comes to public accountability. But in reaction to his promises, Granger offers instead an attitude of the executive droopiness and intellectual denseness of the highest order.
Because of the lack of accountability and transparency in the Granger regime, there is a rapid decline in trust for the rulers. More often than not, all we are getting from this Granger regime is strong doses of mediocrity, administrative inadequacies and “nuff talk”. But talk is cheap if it is not backed up by cost-efficient and effective economic actions.
When will Guyana have its parliamentary budget office Mr Granger?
