Georgetown: Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo announced that the PPP submitteda no-confidence motion Thursday to the parliament against the governmentbecause of a poor track record in office.
Jagdeo at his weekly press conference Thursday said “APNU in the last government submitted a no confidence motion against the Ramotar led administration and they used several reasons to say that they have lost confidence in the government, and that the government should not continue.”
The opposition leader said that APNU had back then stated that the then PPP government was spending too much money and over the three years in office ANPU had to cut $90 billion from the budget.
“So they claimed that the Ramotar led administration had illegally restored the budgets for the Amerindian development fund, for Hinterland Airstrips, for the One Laptop per Family, for School vouchers. Imagine they filed a no confidence motion against us because of this,” Jagdeo said.
He continued: “They then claimed that $4 billion given to GuySuCo was done in breach of procedures, not that the money was stolen, but they had procedurally made an error and should not have given the $4 billion to GuySuCo.”
Further, Jagdeo said the then APNU opposition claimed that monies were illegal held in a semi-autonomous agencies like GGMC, Forestry Commission amongst others that should have been paid over into the consolidated fund although those funds were created by Acts of Parliament.
Addition, he said APNU had claimed there was corruption at the CJIA airport and corruption in the Marriot Hotel project.
Focusing on some of the things the PPP will be using under its no confidence motion, Jagdeo said since the APNU government took office 30,000 jobs has been lost and the entire sugar industry is decimated.
“This government has increase taxes by $60 billion although it came into office with a promise to reduce taxes, it broke its promise to the people of Guyana, it came into office on a promise of creating more jobs, we lost 30,000, they came into office on a promise to lower taxes but raise it, came into office on a promise to lower cost of living, they have increased water rates, they have VAT on electricity, on water, they have refused to reduce excise tax on fuel and I can go on and on,” Jagdeo.
The opposition leader said that many of the government policies have increased cost of living and although the administration promised to want to clean up corruption there has been no conviction because of a real case.
Adding that the Auditor General’s report indicates that there is $500M missing from the Durban Park project, Jagdeo said the public procurement commission also ruled that the government illegally awarded a contract of $605M for a drug purchases.
He added that a contract was also illegally procured for the Demerara Harbour Bridge worth $150M to do a feasibility study.
Jagdeo said that the government initially denied it received an $US18M Exxon signing bonus and refused to add it to the consolidated fund when confronted with the reality.
“This government has no vision, they have absolutely no plan for Guyana, it’s a consumption based philosophy that they are pursuing, they are using up our money on frivolous things, on celebrations and food and more rentals and a whole range of stuff,” Jagdeo said.
He explained that government has already barrowed nearly US$900M which damages prospects for the future.
“We are in a bad shape, and therefore we decided to file a no confidence motion,” Jagdeo said. “Whether we win the no confidence motion or not, the country will benefit from it, because we believe we will get a chance once again to point out what the electorate of APNU and PPP supporters said to them when they rejected them at the polls.”
He said many of the government MP’s who are dissatisfied with the government policies in a principled manner should reflect it in a vote in parliament.
Jagdeo called on government to remove all burdensome taxes especially for water, electricity and fuel while focusing on developing taxpayers lives instead of pressuring society.
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