By Adam Harris- The budget is out. Again it is the largest ever produced in Guyana. In fact, it is four times larger than the combined budgets presented six years ago. But the salaries and wages have not gone up by four hundred per cent since then. The budget was always something people looked forward to. The businessmen would sit with their pens waiting to calculate the increases on their goods. The teachers, nurses and public servants listened for increases to their wages and salaries. I remember the year when the then Forbes Burnham government announced the wages and salaries increases over three years. In those days there was no oil money, no access to large international loans and of course the main earners were rice, sugar and bauxite.
It is not necessary to say that today, the bauxite industry is all but dead and sugar… that has become a drain on the economy. It is consuming large sums from the treasury and is therefore competing with the working people for the same money. I listened to President Irfaan Ali talking about $40 billion going to the people because of the removal of taxes on fuel. Not everyone has a car or a van but everyone travels. President Ali said that because the tax on fuel has been slashed the cost of transportation has become cheaper.
People would not have known had he not said that. In fact, people found themselves paying more for the same trip they made two years ago.
And because fuel prices would impact farming and manufacturing the cost of green vegetables should have gone down because the slashing was done last year. No buyer would have realized that fuel was cheaper than it should have been. Perhaps the government meant for the prices to fall but because many Ministers and senior public servants do not face the market they would not have known. And the ordinary worker waited in vain to hear anything about increases on wages and salaries. None was announced.
The income tax threshold was adjusted so that anyone working for less than $100,000 a month would pay no income tax. But the majority was not paying. They were working for less than $100,000 per month. And they are still earning less. I spoke to some people in North America and found out that US$500 month was so far below the poverty line that people would not even consider working. That, they said, was about US$15 a day which was the hourly minimum wage. And we have oil. Old age pensioners will now get an additional US$15 a month, pushing their pension to about US$180 per month. I use the US dollar because I want people in the diaspora who say that Guyana is oil rich and that people are getting a lot of money, to really see what the money is.
The reality is that despite all the talk about more disposable income, people still cannot buy food. Children still go to school hungry but many will get a $3,000 voucher to test their eyes. And if indeed they need spectacles, they will get a further $15,000. This is a timely intervention. Because of their poor diet many children would have visual challenges. And the children’s woes do not end there. Many of the schools being constructed are stalled. St George’s Secondary is far from being completed. Christ Church Secondary is staggering; Bamia is more than a year overdue and the list goes on. Yet the government is talking about building more schools and hospitals and roads. The contractors claim that they cannot find labour but then again, the labourers say that they cannot command a living wage.
It is the shortage of labourers that have City Hall stalled. All one sees of City Hall, is a building shrouded in scaffolds and protective wires. One must now wonder who is going to build these new edifices. The nation is also hearing about contracts being revoked but not about contractors being blacklisted. And those who have been blacklisted by the international lending agencies are back in the system. That is why critics of the government are saying that the government is loyal to its supporters. The blacklisted contractors are government supporters. One is building the North Ruimveldt Secondary School.
And this loyalty is paying off because these are the people who have been targeted in the budget. They are getting the bulk of the money. If the contract gets pulled they have already been given their money. The question of surcharge never arises and if it does, it is just a talking point. But the government says that the budget talks about disposable income; that people will have more spending money. Yet, according to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo more spending money will lead to inflation. That was the justification for not increasing the wages and salaries of the public servants and nurses. How does one explain the massive spending on infrastructure?
And although the government says that it is keen to make people’s lives better, it is running to the court to challenge a decision to pay those Linden nurses whose pay it had cut. Any government serious about people’s welfare would have simply paid the nurses. Small wonder that these nurses are leaving hand over fist. Instead, the very government is challenging the right to pay the nurses. That is why so many people say that it is doubtful that the government cares about the ordinary people. At first, one was left to wonder who would staff the new hospitals and health centres being built.
But some now understand that nurses would be imported from India and Cuba. Of course, they would be paid better that the Guyanese. And while this is going on the government is borrowing more money. It has so much, it is borrowing more to the extent that the country’s debt is higher than it ever was. This is going to be a record year, the year of the biggest budget, the year of the largest debt and the year of the longest wait for a pay rise.
