The PNCR-1G is calling on the Government to discuss the rising food prices and efforts to mitigate the effects on the Guyanese populace at the level of the Multi-stakeholder Consultations since talks at the parliamentary level will not suffice.
The party is also calling for the Government to give an account of itself for its efforts to increase agricultural yields over the last 15 years.
These issues were raised by economic point man of the party Winston Murray during a debate yesterday on a motion on the rising cost of food that Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud had tabled last month. Around two dozen MPs were expected to participate in debate on this motion yesterday.
The motion sought to have the National Assembly take note of the impact of global food prices on the cost of living in Guyana and support the interventions taken to cushion the impact of these increased prices.
The Motion had also sought to have the National Assembly undertake to follow the implementation of the Governmental interventions and to be provided with the deliberations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Food Prices on a quarterly basis. The Motion’s resolve clause also urged that “the National Assembly recognises that the situation requires national action and sustained efforts and engagement with critical sectors and groups to confront this challenge locally and regionally.”
On May 8, the motion had been due for debate but after the PNCR-1G was absent from Parliament attending a protest, the Minister moved that the motion be deferred, since he wanted the entire opposition to be present to make their contribution to the debate.
Murray said that if the Government intended to persist with the motion in its present form, the PNCR-1G would have no choice but to withhold its support. He said that the Motion needed a Resolve clause committing Government to writing a national agriculture development plan.
Murray said that Government’s response to the food crises and the rising cost of living may not be timely enough or deep enough to bring relief.
He said that since the country has been blessed with arable land, agricultural production must be the backbone of the country’s economy. “The PNCR looks forward to a stewardship report on what it has done over the 15 [for Guyana’s agriculture]. More could and should have been done,” said Murray. “We have not over the past years put ourselves in a position to benefit from the opportunities [we have now],” Murray said.
On the Jagdeo Agriculture Initiative, Murray said that the National Assembly had no knowledge of it save for what was available in the press and in other sources.
He said that it should have been brought before, and debated in the National Assembly, so that it could have had the benefit of input from all sides, before going off to Caricom for approval and adoption.
“The Government sees the National Assembly as takers of information and swallowers of propaganda,” Murray said. “Where is the role of the National Assembly for the structured interaction, for our opinions, for the debate?” he asked.
On the high prices, Murray said that the Government should go to the next meeting of the Caricom Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) and apply for the removal of the Common External Tariff on a number of various food items as one other way of bringing relief.
He said that as a means of boosting the agriculture capacities of various regions, Government needs to look at what is being done to improve drainage and irrigation schemes.
Murray is of the view that not enough is being done to maintain these structures and ensure that they are productive, which would have allowed Guyana to be a major food producer.
VAT
Murray said that for so long as the Value Added Tax remains at 16 per cent, and for as long as commodity prices continue to rise on the world market, there will continue to be a windfall collected from the VAT and it is for these reasons that the VAT is contributing to the high cost of living.
He said that what the Government should have done was to relieve the burden by announcing a reduction of the VAT to 9 per cent at the reading of this year’s budget. He said too that if Government was serious about bringing relief to the people of Guyana then it would consider converting ad valorem taxes to specific taxes.
Investment
He said that to encourage investors in agriculture, “we need to identify the full concessions, law-based concessions, that will be available to these investors.” He said that the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest) needs to mount an international search for investors. “The word Go-Invest…means that [they] should go [find investors] and not wait for them to come,” he said.
“I get the feeling that all is not well in the Government’s desire to get investors here,” he said, adding investors may have to fit in well to the profile of ‘Government supporter’ to get investment.
Three bills relating to the security sector were laid in the National Assembly yesterday. These were the Visiting Forces Bill 2008, Bill No 5 of 2008; the Status of Visiting Forces Bill, Bill No 6 of 2008 and Hijacking and Piracy Bill, Bill No 7 of 2008.
