Dear Editor,
The government has delivered the largest budget in the country’s history. The budget allocates huge amounts of money to various sectors. But it is short on specifics on how the financial burden on the poor will be alleviated. There is no specifics on job creation. The increase in old age pension by $3000 is insufficient to address the rise in costs for goods and transportation. The $3K increase is insufficient to buy a small cylinder of gas for cooking or a 10Kg bag of rice. There is no mention of an increase in the minimum wage – the minimum monthly salary should be over $80K and even that amount is insufficient to provide the basic necessity for a family of four. Price for all goods (including food items) has been doubled over the last year. How will the government lower the cost of basic foods? Will savings at the wharf, customs, farm, and other sources be transferred to the poor or consumers? If so, how? How will it be enforced?
Also, the government had promised to create 50K jobs. So far, only 500 jobs have been created over 17 months. When will the other 49K jobs be created? Is the government relying on the private sector to create the jobs? If so, how great of the government to push the responsibility to the private sector. But when will they be created? Unemployment is extremely high. The unemployed need relief to cope with inflation. The government had promised to increase pension to $40K. It was $25K, now going up to $28K. When will the pensioners get $40K? The government allocates most of the money in the budget to projects that will be done by contractors. The same contractors, who earned most of the money from the previous budgets, will be the beneficiaries again. Unless government stipulates that contracts will be given to new qualified contractors, and that all contracts will be distributed equitably, based on region and other factors, then things will never get better.
Sincerely,
Dr. Vishnu Bandhu
Leader, URP
