– But President only said, “He will look into it”
By Abena A. Rockcliffe-Campbell
President David Granger needs to awake from his slumber and act more prudently in overlooking the business of the nation. This is what Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo said at a recent press conference held at his Church Street Office.
There, Jagdeo disclosed that he warned the President about the extra burden the nation will have to take on in less than two years, all because of a bond which the authorities seem indecisive about its purpose.
Jagdeo told the media, “Granger is still sleeping because I told him this in my conversation with him. In the meeting that I had with him I said, ‘you are going to pay over $2B in a year and a half for not using the money.”
Jagdeo said he told the President it is unwise to have the money just sitting there and gaining interest.
“We calculated the interest it (the bond) will accumulate in a year and a half because I am saying that that is how long it might take even if you move fast to get a long term project. It will take that time to go through the feasibility study, the design, the contracting, the design of a cogeneration plan etc. I told them that taking all the money at once and sitting on it for a year and a half at 4.75 percent interest will be over $2.2B,” said Jagdeo.
Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo
President
David Granger
The former President said that he also told Granger that the money accumulated in interest for less than two years can completely cover the severance packages for all the sugar workers that government laid off.
However, according to Jagdeo, the President’s only response to those concerns was that, “He will look into it.”
The Opposition Leader told the media, “It is not like we were being malicious; we were just pointing this out so that they can fix it.”
CONFUSED
Jagdeo said that the reason the government is finding itself in all this difficulty, resulting in extra financial burden for the nation, is because it is incompetent and confused.
On one hand, Jagdeo said that the Minister of Agriculture Noel Holder has finally awoken because he disagreed with the bond being secured from Republic Bank. But, on the other hand, Jagdeo said that Holder is sailing because he is depending on a state paper to guide the development of a multi-billion dollar company—the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).
Jagdeo said, “I now see the same Minister Holder pointing out that they took a state paper where they explained in detail, where we are going and what will happen in the sugar industry.”
Jagdeo pointed out that the PPP had called for a debate on that very paper and on several occasions, had cited its inadequacies.
The Opposition Leader said that the paper is short on detail and long on rhetoric. “It has no clear direction nor does it have details about where they are going. You cannot use a state paper to plan the operations of a multi-billion enterprise.”
Jagdeo said that the government should at least know that there should be annual plans and a medium term plan. “You have to do financial projections; you have to look at your revenue expenditure; what the programme will be in the future. But clearly the Minister thinks he can be guided by a general document.”
