OPINION: A budget supplement in the making, or budget steroids

Last Updated on Wednesday, 3 April 2024, 21:15 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali has been placed above his capacity.  This much is clearer.  He has made the cardinal mistake of thinking that volume at high levels guarantees victory in the minds of Guyanese.  Better men have made worst miscalculations.  Take the latest on the 2024 national budget, and there is proof of who and what President Ali is.  A shuffler of cards, a street operator, who is not in the least wise over the feeble way he and his government register.  This year’s budget stands as the prime exhibit.

The 2024 budget is a record breaker, breaking the record of the one that came immediately before.  Yet, there is the unreal and it is only the month of April.  Excellency Ali is now hinting at a budget supplement.  This must be his idea of a belated April Fool’s Day prank.  Incidentally, Excellency Ali should not be seen as a clash of words in what they embody, though he tries mightily to make it so.  A budget supplement this soon after, my fellow Guyanese?  After a trillion-dollar whopper of a budget a little over a month ago?  Whatever the president has in mind for a budget supplement, it is not a dose of vitamins, but sounds like a shot of cocaine to shore up what is already falling to pieces.  One year of budgetary studies, of budget concoctions and marvels, and with a grand trillion plus resulting, and President Ali is sending out smoke signals about a budget supplement.  Could somebody take me away from here, and put me out of this national misery, this leadership vacancy?  Forget about me, remember Guyanese.  But please think of the rest of Guyanese, who expected much, got less, and now have to grapple with more of the same political and leadership depression.

More and more, I am beginning to think that national budgets are the equivalent of credit cards in the paws of the PPP Government.  Take advances, spend like a maddened partner or an identity thief, run up the total, and then pause to think of what just have to be ordered again.  Even the most partisan in this society, if they have a shred of honesty left, must admit that money matters are all mucked up.  Apparently, the good doctor in President Ali addicts him to an expensive spending prescription.  The man is out of control, I surmise.  It was that other financial magician, Dr. Ashni K. Singh, who waxed so brilliantly about sound fiscal management, and all the intellect horsepower that went into the 2024 budget.  So how come it has sprung a leak this early in the fiscal year?  It seems to me to be more a case of horse droppings than horsepower involved.  Because what I make clear for my fellow Guyanese is that nobody with some sense can be this crummy with budgets that makes such a dummy out of every Guyanese.  Nobody could be this limited even if they tried.  I think that many of these fellas with something related to doctor before or after their names belong in a sanitorium.  They are a true danger to this society.

In 2023, and working from memory, the PPP Government went to parliament sometime in May for a budget boost, and after what was a record one then.  Today, at the beginning of April, the president is throwing up spit balloons about a few dollars more.  I suppose allowances must be made for the fact that it is a Leap Year, and that February had an extra day.  Therefore, the president is not early but in line with last year’s first supplement.  Come to think of it, whatever is contemplated cannot be reduced to the minimum of a supplement.  This is steroids territory; more along the lines of experimental budgetary surgery.  Hair is crawling out from deep roots in their eyeballs.  When is this nonsense going to be a thing of the past.  Did the budget not provide for $7B in slush funds under some broad and safe tent?  I humbly recommend to President Ali that he taps into that petty cashbox for the $100M that has risen to the level of immediate urgency.

I have another serious piece of advice for the president.  If he is going to the rubberstamp parliament for more money, he might as well go the whole nine yards and include some billions for teachers.  There can no longer be the lame excuse that money is a problem.  If it could be found for sundries, I would nominate teachers.  Make a good job of a bad situation, doctor commander.  Though I had warned earlier that the trillion-dollar budget would be revisited (add-ons), this early bird knock-on-the-door supplement reference catches off-guard.  The ink is not even dry yet on a trillion-dollar one, and the PPP Government is scheming about supplementary money.  It is time for me to make tracks.  Last year’s budget had three or four supplementary developments.  I make this wager in April: that number will be surpassed this year.  Good luck, Guyana.