General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party and Member of Parliament, Donald Ramotar, during his 2011 budget debate presentation last Friday, said that government is convinced there is a direct link between development and democracy.
“We have always worked on that basis, and that is why it is very important for us to uphold democracy; because we do not believe that the progress we have made will be sustainable unless we have democracy,” the Government Information Agency reported him as saying.
The PPP general secretary said that the administration’s commitment to improve the lot of Guyanese, particularly the poor and vulnerable, is unwavering; and he reminded that this commitment saw the removal of the “means test” to allow senior citizens to enjoy a better quality of life.
Ramotar said that during the PNCR regime, the local private business sector was not given a level playing field compared to foreign investors, as more concessions were given to foreign companies.
He affirmed that government has “no apologies to make for giving concessions to the real (private) sector, because it is this sector that produces not only wealth, but high-paying jobs as well.” With regard to the banking sector, Ramotar said that while thousands of banks across the world are bankrupt due to the global recession, financial institutions in Guyana are beneficiaries of the growth of the local economy, and have been rapidly expanding their services.
The prudent management of Guyana’s economy is now becoming a case study for other countries. A study carried out by an official from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and a professor from the University of the West Indies (UWI) on the decline of output volatility concluded that internal policy improvement, nominal exchange rate, and fiscal stability and financial market deepening have been the main contributors in the fall of output volatility in Guyana, he said.
Ramotar said that the opposition’s argument regarding the Value Added Tax (VAT) “does not hold water.” He explained that VAT has replaced many taxes, including the consumption tax; and Guyana’s rate is considerably lower than other countries, such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom.
Moreover, in Guyana, all of the basic items that are used on a day- to- day basis are zero- rated. He further explained that the revenues acquired by VAT are spent on initiatives aimed at improving the lives of Guyanese, such as increasing old age pension and wages and salaries; drainage and irrigation; and improving infrastructure.
Ramotar said that modernisation is a vital step in the development process; and as such, government has been placing much emphasis on information communication technology (ICT). He said that the incorporation of this technology can drastically revolutionalise sectors such as tourism, forestry, mining and agriculture.
With regards to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), he reminded that a restructuring has to take place. He pointed out that the industry has been losing almost Gy$10 billion per annum due to the European Union price cut.
“It is obvious that we have to make different arrangements for the industry, and that is what we are doing. The whole Skeldon project was designed to alleviate many of the problems that the industry is faced with. It is true that we have difficulties and it is nothing for the opposition to gloat about. We must work towards correcting the problems, so that the industry could realise its true potential,” he said.
