AFC MP Dr. Veerasammy Ramaya on Monday took aim at government’s proposed 5% increase in old age pension.
“The $21 increase a day for pensioners can’t even buy a butter flap, let alone cheese and butter to go inside. A three-year-old would refuse to accept that from their parents to go to school,” Ramaya said as the first day of budget debate commenced in the National Assembly.
Finance Minister Ashni Singh last Monday had announced that one of the measures in the proposed $220 billion budget was a 5% increase in old age pension, taking it to $13,125 from the current $12,500, with effect from May 1.
One of the AFC’s many action plans for this year, Ramaya said, calls for $15,000 per month to be paid to pensioners. According to Ramaya, “the poor, the unemployed, the elderly, the youth and the disabled are under the gutter with the 2014 budget.”
Ramaya contended that the budget was designed as a pre-elections budget, “to fool rural Guyana…I saw half of a cup which contains bitter coffee and no sugar or milk. To describe this budget and the absence of sugar and milk is the decline of GuySuCo, and the bread and butter will be taken away from sugar workers.”
Ramaya also charged that the “white elephant Skeldon Sugar estate is now an octopus. The over US$200M invested on it could have rehabilitated the estates country wide than to operate a factory below 35% production.”
According to Ramaya, one of the action plans of AFC could have seen a better budget, “whereby the sugar workers could have been given a decent increase in their wages so that the coffee could have been rich with nuff milk.”
His party, he said, will vote for funds for the sugar belt once there is a clear justification for the request. “The AFC will vote for any money for the sugar industry once there is clear justification for it, we are not pagalee (stupid),” he told the National Assembly.
Ramaya also challenged the government to call local government elections so that the people of the sugar belt can have direct consultations with them.
He added that since 2011, Singh had said that $10.5B has been injected into the sugar belt, but the industry continues to suffer. “He now have the audacity to come and say that after spending all that money in the sugar belt, that sugar production contracted to some 186,000 tonnes. This is the lowest production of the PPP budget. Even after the great floods of 2005 that injured GuySuCo, the industry produced over 250,000 tonnes of sugar,” he pointed out.
Ramaya also flayed the Health Ministry, stating that several persons utilizing public hospitals have complained about shortages of beds, shortages of medicine and several patients are even given prescriptions to buy their own drugs. APNU MP Vanessa Kissoon at this point shouted that it was “going towards fake awara. They putting the drugs in fake awara.”
He also questioned why a significant amount of money was being spent to build a Specialty Hospital, when it could have been spent to upgrade the current hospitals.
Meanwhile, regarding crime Ramaya said that the $17.3B that was allocated to enhancing public safety and security and the number of serious crimes that occurred in 2013, revealed that this was similar to the days of the “Fineman gang.”
“Some 4200 serious crimes were reported in 2013, which included 155 murders. So, what really did the PPP spend this $17.3B on? I ask the Honorable Minister where this money was spent. What really is the Ministry spending all this money on?” he said, while adding that if tourism is to go up, the current crime rate must go down.
He also said that his party calls for a 20% salary increase across the board for all lawmen so that they can concentrate on solving crime and not “hustling a dollar.” The party also wants the reappointment of the Police Service Commission so that all eligible officers can be promoted accordingly, he noted.
He asserted that the party supports the establishment of the SWAT team but does not understand why the Government was so “slothful” in its establishment. Another establishment the party welcomes, he said, was that of the forensic lab. “Guyana has too many unsolved crimes. We have no confidence in Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee,” he added.
Further, he added that the police marine and air wings need to be operationalised and he noted that an AFC government would have put $120M to start this process.
