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– as PPP/C seeks to pass bills to legitimise budget measures
The main opposition APNU+AFC said that it will boycott today’s sitting of the National Assembly during which the government will seek to give legal cover to the several budget measures.
“Today, Tuesday 29th September the PPP intends to lay bills concerning measures which we have exhaustively debated over ten days in the National Assembly. These bills belatedly seek to have debates on the matters which we already debated, but extract those measures which seek to show a soft side of an extremely harsh budget for the ordinary Guyanese man and woman. While the PPP fiddles to find millions for their friends and family, the Henry, Singh and hundreds of families like theirs, are denied justice. It is a shame!
The APNU+AFC will not be part of another attempt by the PPP to deceive the Guyanese people. In the circumstance, we believe that the interest of the Guyanese people will not be served by our attendance and further debate on measures in this “anti-working class” budget today,” the coalition said in a statement issued Monday night.
Below is the full statement by the coalition
Dear Guyanese, over the past two weeks we debated the PPP budget proposals and considered estimates of expenditure. This exercise ended on Friday 25th September, 2020.
During the debate and consideration of the estimates we made it clear that the budget ignored the poor and average man and woman of Guyana and will make life more difficult.
As we have maintained from the inception, the budget is defective, divisive and deceptive and in a previous statement on September 25th, 2020, we said:
- “Budget 2020 has turned out to be a colossal disappointment. The budget has failed to adequately address the most significant public health crisis of our time- (the COVID-19 Pandemic); it has failed to address the needs of the working man and woman. It highlights the People’s Progressive Party’s –PPP’s- continued failure to keep its promises to citizens of this nation, especially our men and women in uniform and our hard-working public servants.
- The APNU+AFC is appalled by the callous treatment of ordinary Guyanese by the PPP regime, particularly public servants – our health care workers, our teachers and our joint services.
- Now that we have completed the Budget Debate and completed a considerable amount of the consideration of the Estimates, APNU+AFC Coalition’s initial reaction to the budget has been confirmed and vindicated. This Budget is defective, divisive and deceptive.
- The Guyanese people have no doubt that this budget is one designed to benefit PPP financiers. They show their contempt for the hard-working ordinary people of Guyana and bloat the PPP fat cats who are lining up to cash in at the treasury.”
The budget has been passed despite several interventions APNU+AFC made about breaches of the law and the biased allocation of the financial resources of this country.
Today, Tuesday 29th September the PPP intends to lay bills concerning measures which we have exhaustively debated over ten days in the National Assembly.
These bills belatedly seek to have debates on the matters which we already debated, but extract those measures which seek to show a soft side of an extremely harsh budget for the ordinary Guyanese man and woman.
While the PPP fiddles to find millions for their friends and family, the Henry, Singh and hundreds of families like theirs, are denied justice. It is a shame! The APNU+AFC will not be part of another attempt by the PPP to deceive the Guyanese people. In the circumstance, we believe that the interest of the Guyanese people will not be served by our attendance and further debate on measures in this “anti-working class” budget today.
