NCN, GINA $$ cut

Minister in the Ministry of Finance Juan Edghill speaking yesterday.

Targeting proposed budgetary allocations for both the National Communica-tions Network (NCN) and Government Information Agency (GINA), the parliamentary opposition yesterday voted down the entire $5.1B Office of the President (OP) budget for Administrative Services, sinking funding for other unrelated entities in the process.

While making it clear that there was no issue with the other entities that will be affected, including Castellani House, the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) and the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest), both APNU and AFC speakers said they could not approve funding for NCN or GINA, for which they said the government was using taxpayers’ money to fund for partisan purposes.

The opposition had voted to cut subsidies for both agencies to $1 during the consideration of the budget estimates in the two preceding years and members yesterday again questioned under what authority the government was continuing to channel money into both of them. The government said the authority was