Georgetown: The People’s Progressive Party condemns the latest assault on the 2013 budget, Guyana’s largest, by the joint opposition alliance of A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance for Change.
According to the Party, the opposition cannot divorce itself from the remarks by the leader of the opposition Mr. David Granger who was quoted by the media as saying that the budget has “….a little bit for everyone…” on March 25th 2013 and now say that the budget does not cater for everyone or does not take their suggestions on board.
The PPP in a statement further noted: “The all or nothing mentality which has been the hallmark of the joint opposition since the life of the current Parliament commenced is surely detrimental in administering the affairs of the Guyanese people and one that is not grounded in reality with regard to securing the future of our nation.
It is this reckless management of our resources which had placed us as the poorest Caribbean nation next to Haiti two decades ago and surely the progressive but responsible measures under successive PPP/C administration since that period have now secured our economy and we are now at the stage where we have consolidated our gains and have embarked on accelerating our development only to be confronted now with a resurgence of the failed plans and policies of that bygone era.
Undoubtedly, the 2013 budget by the President Donald Ramotar led Government caters for the needs and reaches out to all Guyanese. It lays the foundation to build on these measures in coming years, while at the same time ensures that these initiatives can be maintained by Central Government.
The actions by the AFC/APNU alliance are purely designed to destroy our gains as a nation and a people and place us in a similar position to what is currently the reality for several of our CARICOM neighbors at this time, where public sector workers have been forced to take wage freezes in order to preserve their jobs and where national budgets have had to be slashed because of dwindling resources among other negative effects.
It is unfortunate that in Guyana we have the resources but we have an opposition who are bent on cutting those resources, placing workers on the breadline and depriving our people of necessary goods and services to positively impact their lives all because they are power drunk on a one seat dictatorship in the National Assembly.
The PPP finds it heartening that so many stakeholders have come forward to publicly register their support for the national budget including fierce Government critics which has left the AFC/APNU alliance in a very lonely corner of society with their outdated and unpopular proposed measures of cutting the budget by some $40 billion.
Faced with this reality the opposition has now resorted to making a number of unrealistic demands from Government in order to save face with the public.
This plan has however backfired and has served to reinforce the perception that the opposition is out of touch with reality and not interested in development.
All responsible stakeholders should reject outright this outrageous attempt by the Opposition to hold Budget 2013 to hostage and to hijack and stymie development in Guyana.”
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