Georgetown: Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President today informed that subsequent to meetings between Government and representatives of the two political Opposition Parties, the decision was made to form a tripartite grouping which would participate in the elaboration of a protocol for the Opposition to be more involved in the preparation of future national budgets.
Preparation of the national budgets starts sometime in July-August of the previous year and lasts until its presentation in the National Assembly.
“The protocol is intended to formalise whatever is agreed upon that would institutionalise the involvement of the Opposition political parties in the process of preparation of national budgets,” the Cabinet Secretary said.
The Opposition obviously depended on the political maturity of President Donald Ramotar in having their 11-point agenda submitted to the Head of State on a very immediate and urgent request for commencement of talks, which began on April 15, the HPS said.
During the talks, Dr. Luncheon pointed out that it was clear that the 11-point agenda submitted by the AFC and APNU bore no necessary nexus with the budget estimates; instead, their agenda consisted of mostly old matters that deal with aspects of governance that had not gained any significant support by the Administration when originally presented during previous discussions.
Government updated the Opposition on the tax reform committee and the examination of the taxation policy. They were informed of the contractual arrangements already entered into with professionals from the Duke University’s School of Public Policy to provide technical inputs into implementing the approved Terms of Reference (TORs) for the tax reform study.
During his inauguration speech, President Ramotar made a commitment to review the Value-Added Tax (VAT) and the taxation policies in Guyana.
The Opposition was also made privy to the finalised 8th actuarial report of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) as well as minutes of the consultations which were held with target groups in the three counties.
A commitment was also made by the Government to provide the Parties with a discussion paper that address the Government’s intentions towards handling the concerns that were surfacing about the viability of the NIS.
Additionally, Government also reaffirmed its commitment to publicly release the report of the special audit of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) – National Communications Network (NCN) project.
The meeting recommenced on April 17, when it was realised that outstanding issues were not being addressed to the mutual satisfaction of the two sides, particularly in the context of the estimates, and as such the two sides agreed that they would continue sharing their thoughts and positions on these agenda items but the fac to face engagements will not continue.
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