The AFC is aware that the Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, was heavily criticised for being so ad hominem in his first response to the Leader of the AFC claims concerning the sum of $800,000 million in the Revised Wages and Salaries category for the past five years not being accounted for.
The criticism came recently from senior colleagues of his in the Cabinet. It is for this reason he had to issue a second response late afternoon of December 9, 2013.
The AFC and its Leader felt that the first response did not merit and was unworthy of a reply. It revealed how scatter-brained the
Minister of Finance was getting, now that his game was up and the Ministry’s scheming was being unraveled .
We learnt that the Minister was directed by Senior Cabinet officials to put out a proper response which will meet the merits of Mr Ramjattan’s claims. The AFC has seen that response.
The AFC asserts that there is not an iota of truthfulness in that second response. Indeed, this second response is a little more respectful but just as well it is most specious.
What the Minister said then in April 2013 was indeed said,
but it was all suspect and hollow. Just like in the previous year when he said that the Opposition has the right to reduce proposed budgetary allocations which right he will respect, yet going to court to argue that there was no such right.
Now in this his more measured second response, it is not completely true to say that only about half of the approved $4.4 billion for Revised Wages and Salaries for 2013 was going to go towards increases for public servants. The most substantial part was supposed to, if not the whole of it.
It is also not true that the other half was intended for new recruits and promotions.
As is well known, it would be most ludicrous to believe that new recruits and promotions from April 2nd 2013 to December 10th, 2013 would involve so much expenditure. to come up to approximately $2.2 Billion! What kind of projections as to extent of our Public Service staffing is that? That would be way off! The Minister will now have to say how many new staffers the Public Service took on during that period and why.
Additionally, what were their categories and salaries? And of course, now that he is plausibly arguing that this sum catered for promotions, he has to inform about and account for all the said promotions. He will not be let off the hook!
Ashni Singh’s credibility has become of the identical ilk like a predecessor of his, maybe probably worse. Remember Jagdeo when he was Minister of Finance under the Presidency of Janet Jagan? We all remembered when Jagdeo, with all the theatrics of an Academy Award winning actor, said there was no monies to pay additional increases to Public Servants because all the monies, including those under the Revised Wages and Salaries allocation, had been used up for similar reasons ….new recruits and promotions. Well, the Armstrong Inquiry, commissioned after the massive public servants demonstrations of 1999, investigated and found enough monies to pay 25 and 31 percent respectively for the following two years after 1999.
So it is the same disingenuous strokes but with a different batsman playing them.
The AFC maintains that the money is there for an increase of up to a minimum of 10 percent and maximum 15 percent. The country must come to understand that the deception continues.
The Public Servants know how to bring out the truth about what they truly deserve. Since the Government is repeating its play of 1999, maybe the public servants may have to use its strong arm similarly an get an Armstrong back here.
This Government apparently will never learn. Moreover, the mask of this minority Government being pro-worker has long fallen!
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