OPINION: Three budget captions, two verbs, one interpretation

Last Updated on Tuesday, 3 February 2026, 16:28 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Day One of the 2026 budget debate in parliament produced the regular ho-hum, humdrum, and the hums from politicians having a good time pretending to be for the people. Three captions from Tuesday’s edition of SN told the story. SN limited itself to two verbs, which led to one interpretation and conclusion from me. It’s all I have to offer.

First up was my call for a boycott of the budget debate, to facilitate the PPP Govt side owing and patrolling the floor. It did. The first day of the debate produced the usual. “MPs feud over the impact of budget.” And “‘Two’faced’ governance versus ‘transformational progress’ Minister Persaud and Singh-Lewis clash over budget.” Then, “La Cruz, Flue-Bess clash over impact of sports budget”, with all three captions compliments of SN’s budget coverage. It’s either the editors got bored and repeated one verb (clash), or they ran out of words and settled for one noun (impact) to signal that effect on Guyanese from media masters to those living in misery. Or, to be safe, SN used repetition for emphasis. About how bad things are with Guyanese. About how bad the budget is for the little poor people of Guyana.

Whatever it was, those three budget related captions conveyed the stark. The 2026 budget is not a relief measure, or plan, to alleviate poverty among deprived, distressed Guyanese. The 2026 budget is another PPP Govt blueprint to reward its insiders, believers, followers. Government superstars Edghill, Persaud, and La Cruz can wave their verbal wands and congratulate themselves, the budget master, and their supreme master (in Belize), but Guyanese live daily with the harrowing. Nothing further needed to be said on that score; harrowing says it all. Shadow opposition stars, with no takedown intended, Mr. Jordan, Ms. Flue-Bess and Ms. Singh-Lewis all held good cards – the pain of the people – but they don’t have enough hands. A fatal deficit in any budget verbal scramble. When all the negatives are assailed, all the points scored, it all comes down to the numbers for the passing of the budget. A trillion and a half plus dollars it is, and more than a trillion words and tears could be shed over that fatal budget, and not one damn thing is going to change.

The debate is an exercise in futility. The Honourable Edghill, Persaud, and La Cruz, and whoever follows them know this. So, what Guyanese are spectators to is a set of amateur actors in action on the biggest stage in Guyana. Any citizen looking for scintillating flares of Shakespeare from that parliamentary mudflat is walking in the wrong alley, needs to correct and look right here. In this column. Anywhere, but parliament. Parliament, the house of the Guyanese people, is reduced to soggy theater, with a blend of theatrics from longstanding practitioners of that superficial art. Whether a Guyanese presence before a Belizean parliament, or those in Guyana’s Arthur Chung battlefield, it is all sound and fury representing absolutely nothing. Give me one changed mind, one changed line item, one changed vote, and I leave these shores. For a time. For some fresh Los Angeles air.

Day One of budget 2026 debate was spirited. The hope is that it stays so, doesn’t deteriorate into the scurrilous, the frivolous, and the ferocious. A little personal snippet: I have never looked at a budget debate, or listened to a fraction of a session of any parliament. Don’t intend to start now, risk disturbing my serenity. When slapstick is needed, the Three Stooges meet Hercules (or Dracula) is good enough for me. What is a debate if not about research, the flame of intellectual prowess brought to bear with concentrated heat, and flecked with the lightning bolts of shimmering eloquence of blinding intensity? And what do Guyanese get for their money and their hopes and their pain? They get a recycled PPP, a reinvented (with scotch tape and toothpaste) PNC, and a reviving WIN, with all putting on a game face while they engage in a fixed gameshow. The $64,000 question is which group is about truth, democracy, and a better way for Guyanese, particularly the poor. Instead of better, what the people get from the PPP is bitter. Which man if his son asks for bread will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? In both instances, the PPP Govt budget for 2026 did. The rest is jabber, jabber…