There will be no principled opposition critiques of the budget – just opportunistic populist proposals that would bankrupt the country.

Forbes Burnham, the founder leader of the PNC that has morphed into APNU (for cover), famously invoked (in Latin) an aphorism to describe one of his attacks to depose the PPP government: “it was the occasion for the war; not the cause of the war”. The budget to be presented by Minister Ashni Singh today will just be another occasion for the never-ending war by the acolytes of Burnham. Granger is a linear descendant of Burnham while Ramjattan matches the old fox in ambition – sadly not in wit or verbal facility. Their cause remains constant – to ‘depose’ the PPP by any means necessary.

So while tradition dictates that the minister will simply read his speech summarising his budget and the opposition will have a week off to study the same and the return for the debate; expect the long knives to be drawn reflexively and immediately. It is ironic that at the last elections this opposition lulled the people into believing that they wanted “shared governance”. Never in the annals of our history has an opposition been so focused on seizing power by breaking all traditions – except for the Burnhamite betrayals of 1962-64, of course.
Then, too, (1963) the budget became a focal point of fear mongering to provoke violence between the people of Guyana. Budget allocations were alleged to be discriminatory to one section of the people: expect the same once again. The old accusations that sugar workers were being pampered might be now muted because of the travails in the industry but now expect them to hypocritically accuse the government of neglecting them!
There will be no principled critiques of the budget – just opportunistic populist proposals that would bankrupt the country – as before – if implemented. Take the opposition’s demand for a massive reduction in VAT. Where will they get the money to maintain the high level of social spending that our people have become accustomed to? Some airy fairy promise that they will realise ‘savings’ by curbing corruption!
Do these jokers know how the budgetary process works? Of course they do! They know they can’t sit in Parliament and examine spending on paper to realise ‘savings’ in advance. But they simply want to create confusion and trouble. Unmask the fascists!