Workers need welfare packages – Irfaan Ali

…stimulus also needed for businesses unable to weather COVID-19

Workers who have been laid off and will struggle to make ends meet in the midst of the coronavirus (COVID-19) need welfare packages. This is the view of People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Presidential Candidate Dr Irfaan Ali.

In an interview with this publication on Monday, Dr Ali, who has been leading a distribution drive as part of the People’s Progressive Party National COVID-19 Stakeholder Forum, stressed the need for more to be done by the Government for workers.

This includes all working groups but particularly the sugar workers who were tossed on the breadline by the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change’s (APNU/AFC’s) policy of closing sugar estates.
“You have sugar workers without work for two to three years. Can you imagine what they are going through? Can you imagine what wage earners are going through? There has been no mechanism for them,” he said.
Dr Ali also noted the need for businesses unable to weather the financial difficulties of this period, to be provided with stimulus packages by the Government.
These measures, Ali noted, are what the country’s tax dollars should be going to in order to protect the vulnerable and sustain the economy. The problem, he noted, is the Government’s current questionable legal standing and the political instability it has engendered.
“Right now the only constraint is the one created by this Government, by APNU/AFC and the attempts to rig,” he said, expressing optimism that a legitimate Government can soon take the reins of office and address the concerns of everyone in a holistic manner.
So far, only the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has announced a fiscal-related measure capable of bringing some relief. These measures had included the reversal of APNU/AFC’s own policy of placing Value-Added Tax (VAT) on water and electricity, a policy the PPP has fought since 2015.
GRA has also waived VAT and duties on medical supplies associated with the testing, prevention and treatment of the disease, and the suspension of a series of licensing transactions until April 30, 2020.
In addition, tax deductions were granted for all donations made by local businesses to staff and health institutions for the treatment of the virus.
However, these measures have fallen short of calls from sections of civil society. They also fall short of recommendations made by organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The IMF had released an assessment in which it ranked Guyana among the few countries in the region least prepared to deal with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly the negative impact on the economy and tourism.
Among the measures the institution recommended are tax credits to businesses. It had cited the case of Brazil, which announced an economic package to cushion the economic fallout of the virus
In addition, the IMF had urged targeted fiscal monetary and financial market measures in order to mitigate the economic impact of the virus. It had recommended that Governments should use wage subsidies and tax relief to help affected households and businesses to confront this temporary and sudden stop in production.
“Where policy space exists, broader monetary and fiscal stimulus can lift confidence and aggregate demand, but would most likely be more effective when business operations begin to normalise. Given the extensive cross-border economic linkages, the argument for a coordinated, global response to the epidemic is clear,” the IMF had said.
But in Guyana’s case, the Government has been in a questionable legal status since last year. The APNU/AFC Government has been in power since December 2018, despite falling to a No-Confidence Motion that was supposed to prompt elections in three months.
Instead, the Government spent months in court, after which more months were spent while the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) preparing for elections.
Even though elections were finally held on March 2, 2020 (almost a year after they were constitutionally due), a winner is still to be declared after the process was derailed by bogus declarations. This has led to a recount, which is now being streamlined.