Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance and the Public Service, Dr Ashni Singh has strongly criticised the opposition’s proposed relief measures, arguing that they are unaffordable and not grounded in reality.
In his comprehensive address to the National Assembly at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Thursday, the senior minister provided an estimated total of each initiative promised by the opposition.
Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton has contended that his administration would implement a series of relief measures, including an increase in the income tax threshold to $400,000, and twice-yearly disbursements of $100,000 for adults.
“Increasing the threshold to $400,000 monthly in the first year in office, we have estimated would cost about $34 billion. The $100,000 ‘hard cash’ once or twice a year for adults…we will work with an estimate of 600,000 adults…that is about $120 billion,” he explained.
The opposition also claimed that some $25 billion would subsidise tuition fees at the University of Guyana under their leadership, in addition to a monthly stipend of $50,000 for UG students and those at technical institutes.
“Let us assume that it is about 11,000 students at UG and 3,000 students at the technical institutes. That is 14,000 students, to receive $50,000 per month. That would cost about $8.4 Billion for the year. They said they were going to reimburse all loans and cash payments…let us assume that would cost about $1 billion,” Dr Singh further related.
Another rough calculation for their promise of water subsidies for up to $5,000 per month amounts to approximately $11 billion.
Dr Singh further provided estimates for other proposed measures like the increase in old age pension to $100,000 per month and in the minimum wage to $200,000 per month, a 35 per cent salary increase, $3 billion for the Small Business Bureau and $20 billion for cost-of-living measures.
“They said they would put $50 billion to a development bank with a focus on improving productivity. They said they will allocate $100 billion for the rent-to-own programme…and $200 billion for GPL. Then they said job seekers [will] benefit from $40,000 monthly…this comes out to about $28.8 billion,” he said.
According to Dr Singh, these measures would cost an estimated $799 billion, and this fanciful host of proposed measures exclude the allocations needed for critical sectors like infrastructure and education.
“They haven’t built a single hospital yet, or school, or put a single x-ray machine in the hospitals, or allocated a single house lot…and they are already spending almost a trillion dollars,” the minister pointed out.
Dr Singh challenged the opposition to justify that these measures would not cost as much as estimated.
‘Calculate for yourselves!’
Dr Singh further urged the public to scrutinise these promises and do their own calculations to determine their feasibility.
“I want you to go and see what they promised you and pull out your pocket calculators and calculate for yourself. These things that they are promising you alone would cost about a trillion dollars,” he emphasised.
According to the senior minister, this whimsical and fictitious vision that the opposition has painted is borderline insulting to the Guyanese people, as it underestimates their capacity to think critically about the information being disseminated to them.
“They hold the Guyanese people in contempt. They believe that they can come and spin any tale, tell any stories and make any promise, and they believe that the Guyanese people would believe them and vote for them,” he said.
But Dr Singh added that while this tactic may have worked in 2015, the wounds of the five years of the APNU+AFC coalition government are still fresh in the minds of the Guyanese people, and they will not be duped again.
The senior minister further contrasted these hypothetical postulations with the tangible and visible investments delivered under the PPP/C government. This includes increases to pensions and wages, aggressive housing programmes and the support for sports development.
“We are justifiably proud of what we have delivered to the Guyanese people over the last five years. We did not make the biggest promises in 2020. We sat down and consulted with everybody, and we wrote a manifesto and said ‘If you elect us, this is what we will do’. And we have delivered!” he underscored. [DPI]
