2008 National Budget Uninspiring
Of the five measures listed in the Budget, two were earlier revealed by President Jagdeo. One was the increases in old age pension & public assistance; and the other a 25% increase in the personal income tax allowances. The announcement of additional items to be zero-rated for VAT purposes effective March 01, 2008 appears intended to deliver something of value in a budget that is otherwise uninspiring and failed to address the prevailing realities affecting the Guyanese people. That a Government, which claims to be a caring people’s government, would ignore the pleadings of the people and their representatives for so long (over a year) to zero rate these additional basic and essential items is unacceptable.
Governance
Crime & Security a Cross-Cutting National Issue
Crime and security ought to have been treated as a cross-cutting issue in the budget because the recent frightening level of violence and public safety issues confronting the nation have already begun to have serious social and financial consequences for people as well as for several economic sectors. However, in the self preserving preoccupation of the administration, the crime situation is being treated with the usual “band aid” type of solutions.
Government’s Knee-Jerk Response to Massacre Absurd
For example, the President and others in the governing party placed great emphasis on calling all and sundry to condemn the brutal murders of innocent children, men and women; and while doing so we have been urged to be sure to use the word massacre – as if applying their form and description of the heinous nature of the recent crimes is in itself a major crime fighting achievement. This prescription has now been followed by an engagement with the social and political players who responded dutifully and responsibly without any signs from President Jagdeo of a commensurate willingness to speedily implement their considered recommendations or those warned in the Security Sector Reform Plan (SSRP) being bandied about by members of the Administration.
The (SSRP) warned that the programme will fail if the following occurs:
Government takes a selective approach to reform and reluctance to pursue reforms beyond policing.
Pursuing operational issues without concomitant governance (or justice) reforms.
An overly controlled process and lack of inclusiveness, bolstered by Government’s recent election victory.
Lack of required human resources and/or weak implementation capacity or lapse into a tradition of non-implementation.
Challenges in locating local partners outside of Government (given the weakness and politicization of Parliament and civil society).
Lack of political will to break the perceived linkages between crime and politics (There’s a belief on both sides that certain political interests are manipulating the violence for their own purposes).
Disruptions arising out of politicized racial/ethnic cleavages (a particularly sensitive issue in the security sector) and the possibility that militant wings of the opposition will reject collaboration with the Government.
The report went on to state the short term indicators for the security sector and Guyana to be as follows:
“In spite of encouraging developments and given these risks Guyana remains dangerously close to tipping point. The consequences of failure of the various stake-holders to seize the moment, to engage and initiate decisive action may well be the transformation of Guyana into a failed state and/or haven for international criminality, with all the regional and international implications that this may entail. This is a development that should be avoided at all costs, and will entail some give and take flexibility on all sides in the interest of the long suffering people of Guyana…our own conclusion is that there is less clarity and consensus over the scope and duration of the reform programme, as well as uncertain commitment to a governance dimension.”
Further, the SSRP goes on to say:
“Despite the high premium the Government of Guyana is laying on security sector reform to fight crime and violence, there appears to be no comprehensive and strategic coordinating body, formal or informal, at the level of the Office of the President to take the lead in the reform process. Approaches so far are piecemeal; the methodology for the security sector planning processes is also unclear. The lack of such an overarching national body to drive and direct the process maybe also be one of the reasons for the relatively low impact of the reform process”.
The 2008 National Budget Ignored Fundamentals
I had occasion during last year’s budget to advise the Hon Finance Minister that for a national budget to be relevant, it has to address the local social, economic and political realities. The Government’s security and justice agendas, as listed on pages 36 & 37 of the Minister’s presentation, follow the same old pattern. They promise now to improve the rapid response capacity of the Guyana Police Force (GPF), upgrade their communication and transportation systems, provide technological equipment, etc.
The Hon. Minister is engaging in throwing $G13.7B behind the national security problem to impress us, ignoring the fundamental issues surrounding the crime wave; namely:
a growing disaffection of large sections of our society,
a high rate of unemployment of skilled, unskilled and university graduates;
mishandling of police intelligence and investigations;
corruption and brutality in the police force,
a loss of public confidence in our state institutions and, of course
the consequences of Government’s failed poverty reduction strategy programme.
Furthermore, the social injustices that result from an exploitive Government wages and salaries regime have to be also addressed, as should the social factors affecting a large number of families and communities. We need to change the culture of violence through education and sport, and Government needs to heed their own SSRP which predicts failure.
Making promises, as the Minister did, to accelerate reforms; making declarations which the terrorists certainly won’t heed, is a waste of time as are the promises to improve the rapid response capacity for serious crimes. We have all heard that before.
The Minister exudes no confidence when he promises to upgrade the Force’s archaic communication system which should have been done years ago. He should tell us why successive PPP Governments have not done so as yet. Don’t promise us to intensify training in special operations for selected members of the joint services and much needed technological equipment and transport – tell us why it hasn’t been done after the PPPC Government has been in office for the last 15 years.
Crime & Security – A Threat to Democracy
Studies place crime and violence as the greatest threat to democracy which Guyana faces since we are just above Haiti in the world’s per capita data for political instability and violence. Comparative data indicators (DataGob) between countries of Latin America (LA) and the Caribbean (Carib) for ‘Registered voters as a % of the voting age population’ Guyana rates below the average for LA and the Carib; for ‘Political stability and the absence of violence’ Guyana rates below; for ‘Freedom of the press’ Guyana rates below; in other area of ‘impact of legal contributions to political parties on policy’, ‘Favoritism in decisions of Government officials’ & ‘Judicial independence’ as well.
See the table 2 below
Guyanese Need Better Governance & Restorative Justice
Guyanese need restorative justice and better governance in order to move us towards a comprehensive violence-intervention strategy for ongoing safety and crime prevention. Nothing short of that will encourage economic development and growth. The economic intelligence forecast on Guyana for 2008/9 states that talented Guyanese will continue to leave these chores; that because our political system is driven by race it will continue to retard governance; that the Guyanese public has no confidence in the institutions of State; and that the absence of checks and balances in our political system has led to unbridled misuse of executive power.
It is apposite to note that during the 28 years of PNC rule, the PPP had complained bitterly about the excessive misuse of the powers of the presidency; yet 15 years later, with the ship of state firmly in their hands, successive PPP Governments have done nothing about this. When in opposition, the PPP complained for 28 years about the then Government’s unfair control of the state’s print & electronic media, 15 years later they have done nothing about it. The same goes for the removal of political influence in GECOM, which the PPP Government now tells us is OK.
For a national budget to be meaningful and relevant these are some of the issues that should have been addressed in the 2008 national budget.
World Bank Warned Potential Investors to Guyana
Governance has been at the root of Guyana’s problems since independence because we lost sight of the fact that, except for a one party state or states that are communistic, representative democracy means that elected officials make decisions on behalf of and with the consent of the people. The key to a properly functioning democracy, therefore, is how these representatives are elected and can be held accountable by the people. The World Bank warned potential investors last year that Government’s decision making process was slow and opaque and that an extra-ordinary number of issues were resolved in Cabinet or in the OP, a process that is not opened to public scrutiny.
The last General elections were peaceful, but events so far for the year tell us something is wrong. There are serious tensions in the political environment, great fear among the people and in whole communities. There is wide spread distrust of State institutions and agencies; weaknesses in our oversight bodies such as those we have encountered in the Appointive Committee and, therefore, have been unable to establish the outstanding ‘Rights Commissions’. Similar problems are playing out in the Public Accounts Committee in their effort to establish the Public Procurement Commission. In aggregate, governance indicators Guyana ranks at the bottom of the Caribbean and only above Haiti in political stability and violence.
See Table 1 below: –
If the Government is serious about jump starting the economy, aiding people’s development, attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and retaining much needed skills they should be concerned about this. Our constitution calls for ‘inclusive Governance’ but this concept, as currently practiced by the Government, means ceding independence and transparency rather than opening up a process for people & their organizations to participate in the decision making political process. From what the 2008 budget doesn’t contain we could gauge that it will be business a usual with the intension of Govnment being to maintain its failed policies in areas of nation building and development. Given these realities, we would not support the government in its objective of staying the course.
Governance Data Indicators Graphs
Comments are closed