Workers of budget cut agencies feeling squeeze
- as pay day approaches
THE imminent arrival of the salary date for this month in the Public Service has brought home, with stark clarity, the full impact of the 2014 Appropriation Act, which was passed in National Assembly subsequent to the $37.4B Opposition-led cut from the $220B national budget.Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon said the impact would no doubt take its toll on the livelihoods of the affected workers, particularly those at Office of the President and its subventions agencies.
Both the capital and current expenditure programmes for administrative services for the Office of the President were disapproved by the political Opposition in Parliament.
“The impact, were it to be felt, would essentially see us putting up the ‘For Rent’ or ‘For Sale’ sign as there is no money in the kitty…nothing to support even the most routine activities of the Office of the President and the subvention agencies under the Office of the President,” Dr. Luncheon told reporters.
He explained that the impact is such that it has not only threatened the discharge of the constitutional functions of the President, but livelihoods of many public officers as well. Many of these officers were appointed by the Public Service Commission to pensionable posts.
The HPS said the intellectual authors of the 2014 Appropriation Act need to be reminded that for these workers, the said Act may be seen as a denial of their constitutional rights.
“With such a track record, Guyanese must be warned and must be on the alert; the Opposition appears to have little attention, little care for the rights of ordinary Guyanese. They send the most conflicting of messages and conflicting of signals and this is all done as they pursue their narrow partisan political interests,” the Cabinet Secretary said.
The Opposition has been cutting successive national budgets since the commencement of the tenth Parliament; jeopardising not only people’s livelihoods but many developmental projects as well. As a result, the Government has had to move to the high court to seek redress.
Subsequently, the Chief Justice, issued an interim and later a final ruling, which empowers the Minister of Finance to restore funds cut and/or reduced. However, the workers of affected agencies bore the brunt of the Opposition’s actions since many of them were without salaries for months before the restoration took place.
The 2014 Appropriation Act, which was passed in the National Assembly on April 16, was assented to by Acting President, Samuel Hinds.
At a previous press conference, Dr Luncheon had noted that moving forward presents a challenge, considering the $37.4B reduction in the National Estimates. He contended that the cuts “stranglehold” the implementation of many programmes and functioning of many entities, including OP, where allocations in some areas have been reduced to zero.
Under the allocation for OP, the cuts include $245M for the Presidential Guard services; $95M for the provision of developmental and humanitarian aid, among other initiatives; $10M for the Office of the First Lady; $73.5M for the Guyana Energy Agency; $119M for the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest); $122M for the Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST); $17M for the Integrity Commission; and $28.5M for the Office of the Commissioner of Information.
He had reiterated that, in the absence of a “negotiated solution”, the definitive answer to the challenge of the budget cuts lies in the hand of the interpreters of the Constitution of Guyana, the Judiciary.
On January 29 this year, Acting Chief Justice Ian Chang had ruled that the National Assembly has no right to cut the National Budget. In the Preliminary Ruling given in June 2012, the CJ had ruled that the National Assembly has a role to either approve or disapprove of the National Estimate, not to cut them.
A Notice of Appeal of Chief Justice Chang’s decision was filed, in February, by Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Attorney-at-Law Khemraj Ramjattan, on behalf of Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, who was listed as the appellant in the court.
Last year, the combined Opposition cut the Budget by $31B; and in 2012 by $21B.
Extracted from the Guyana Chronicle