PPP/C responsible for everything wrong in Government – Nagamootoo

February 14, 2016 By GuyanaTimes, http://www.guyanatimesgy.com/2...vernment-nagamootoo/

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo’s presentation during the Budget 2016 Debates focused primarily on how the previous People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration is to be blamed for all the problems the coalition government is currently encountering and less on his administration’s policies to develop the country.

Prime Minister
Moses Nagamootoo

Nagamootoo rose to declare before a room full of government parliamentarians that it is the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) government who restored the faltering confidence of the people since they had lost reliance in the leaders they elected 23 years ago.

On the issue of the rice crisis, Nagamootoo exclaimed that the former government is responsible for everything wrong in the sector.

“He (Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo) would have known that the PetroCaribe deal had floundered and prematurely came to an end while his government, the PPP/C, was in government. And to try to situate the difficulties in the rice sector, particularly with the loss of the Venezuelan rice market, at the footstep of this new government, it was nothing less but an untruth,” the PM argued.

After several minutes of knocking the Opposition for walking out on his speech, Nagamootoo then exclaimed that the former government left the Iwokrama in shambles.

“Under the former government, they have left the Iwokrama as a destitute, begging for finance to survive. The largest single biodiversity park in this country has been left to neglect and yet we have the Leader of the Opposition telling this House that we are the ones not paying attention to biodiversity and that we have to do more when they left Iwokrama into a state where it is hardly able to function,” the Prime Minister stated.

He stressed that almost 40 per cent of the Guyanese population had plunged below the poverty line whilst Donald Ramotar was President.

Nagamootoo also said the former government’s position towards the sugar industry is the reason the sector is currently in a state of “paralysis”.

“I remember that those same persons who were talking about mouth being muzzled, when they learned that GuySuCo was broke… they didn’t say a word. When they learned that the government then, under Ramotar and Jagdeo combination, was going to shutdown GAWU and derecognize the union, their moouth was also muzzled. When Diamond (Estate) was shutdown and their operations merged with Enmore and workers were displaced, where were they, their mouth was muzzled,” Nagamootoo stated, defending his government’s decision to close the Wales Estate, and insisted his administration is indeed considering the welfare of sugar workers.

Nagamootoo also knocked the government for the lack of renewable energy in the country and once again criticised the former government’s decision to move ahead with the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project.

Moreover, the Prime Minister denied promising a 20 per cent increase in public servants’ salaries and he also denied promising rice farmers increased prices for paddy, making reference to the coalition’s manifesto as evidence.