Speeches in the National Assembly

April 11, 2012
Minister of Labour [Dr. Gopaul]: Thank you Mdm. Deputy Speaker. I rise to support this very progressive Budget of 2012 which, I believe, will see continued progress in this country, and I am happy to be associated with it and defend it because I am aware of a time, in the history of this country, when children used to go to school with sugar cake and sugar water and they had to walk miles without transportation. They had to walk with their shoes in their hands because streets were impossible and they had to go through severe hardships. Today the situation is much improved when compared to what it was.
I would have liked to see, and I was going to take a different line had I see some degree of reasonableness being displayed by some of my colleagues on the other side in dealing with this Budget. We cannot have discourse on a budget without analysing it and make statements about corruption. Which figure in this Budget is giving the avenue for someone to be corrupt? Why have the figures not been analysed, and a scientific input made, proper and concrete analysis made so that we can understand...
Mdm. Deputy Speaker: Just one second. Members please remember this is the Hon. Minister’s maiden speech. If it is one convention, Hon. Manickchand, that we observe, because people from your own side could also disturb you, let us do so. So let us listen or do something else if you do not want to listen when Dr. Gopaul is speaking. Please proceed and I will give you back that minute.
Dr. Gopaul: Thank you Mdm. Deputy Speaker. I am making the point that I would have thought that this Tenth Parliament, given its current composition, would have provided an opportunity for serious discourse, sober deliberations and appeal and a working arrangement from all sides so that we will be able to find common ground with a view to seeing this country develop. I want to state clearly, and I believe that when I would have highlighted some of the problems that faced this country in the past, we will see that although it was caused by some Members on the Opposition side and a party which was the People’s National Congress, Members have moved into different political directions, working perhaps and was able to campaign and won significant portion of votes judging from where they were in 1992. That being said, I would have thought that we would have been able to show that maturity and discuss issues so that we will be able to work together.
The President has opened an avenue where Members of the political parties in the Opposition could meet with Members of the ruling party for us to find common grounds. While those discussions are taking place – and I do not know how serious our colleagues in the Opposition are – actions are being taken to give us the impression that, “Look, we won the majority, we are in the majority and therefore you better toe the line or we would not get certain things”. And, in fact, they have set out, without any form of discussions, to amend certain areas when it comes to the composition of the House. We believe that that was wrong and that it was not the way to go. It should have been done with consultation and it should not be done because we believe that on one side we have one vote more than the other. If we continue along that way, the situation could very well be different. And so I believe that this Tenth Parliament can present an opportunity for us to work in the interest of this country.
We should examine where we are now and where we were before, and no one can deny that development has taken place under the PPP/C Government, over the last four elections, in an unprecedented manner. When one hears what happened in the 1980s and the 1990s, and I am going to quote Professor Clive Thomas in The Poor and the Powerless. Professor Clive Thomas, prior to writing this book, in January1982, in the Caribbean contact stated that Guyana’s economy had collapsed. When he wrote that article he drew massive anger from the ruling party then. A month later, the ruling party went out and decided that it was going to tell it like it is. The people were in the dark. The analysis was made.
My comrade, Hon. Irfaan Ali, had indicated what some prominent Caribbean personalities had been saying about today’s development.  I would want to move on with what Professor Thomas said and then give you what Dr. Courtney Blackman from the Barbados Central Bank had to say about the Guyana economy in the 80s and 90s. I am quoting, Professor Thomas from page 285 and page 256 from The Poor and the Powerless, he said:
“Guyana has been in a state of continuous crisis since 1975. The numerous manifestations of this included a negative rate of growth of Real Product since 1975, with the result that per capita real income at the end of 1986 was less than that of 1970 and more than 1/3 below that of 1975. Dramatic increases in malnutrition and deaths from deficient nutrition related illness, particularly in public institutions (hospitals, prisons and homes for aged and disabled), widespread and endemic shortage of food as well as other basic items of consumption. Shortages of raw material was so severe that for the past decade industry has been utilising only thirty to forty percent of rated capacity. In addition, electricity cuts are common, with scheduled cuts in March 1986 averaging 36 hours per week for all districts in the country. Unscheduled interruptions also occurred. With double figured inflation rates between 1975 and 1985 the Consumer Price Index had more than quadrupled. Over half of the labour force was unemployed, following large-scale public sector retrenchments. The virtual collapse of all public utilities to the point of contributing a major obstacle to production, the dramatic deterioration of social services, drastic increases in crime, corruption, clientelism, graft and nepotism in public and private life, a massive external debt in excess of $700 million or three and half times the value of the GDP, and a rapid deteriorating Balance of Payment deficit.”
I am not going to read more, but this covered the picture of what Clive Thomas was seeing happening in the country between 1975 and 1985. Dr. Courtney Blackman, writing in the EC News of the 18th March 1989 had this to say:
“Since the 1981 devaluation Real GDP in Guyana has declined at a rate of negative 6% per annum. Between 1981 and 1987 the economy declined at an average rate of 6%, unemployment is high, and Guyana cannot pay its foreign debt.”
Today we can pay our foreign debts and we can honour our obligations. We can also see development at ever corner of every street in this country. When we develop every corner of the society some members in this House go and tell the people that the PPP is neglecting their supporters and looking after other areas. When they go to the other areas they carry a different message Mdm. Speaker. The PPP/C Government believes in developing this country. We believe in serving all the people of this country.
Mdm. Speaker: Please have a seat Dr. Gopaul. Hon. Attorney General I think I should read this, “...and the interruptions from either side of the House” People seem to believe that you cannot interrupt your own speaker. I would like to read the clause on maiden speeches, “The first speech made in the House by a new Member...” that is the definition of maiden speech, “...by tradition, the Speaker recognises a Member rising to make such a speech in preference to others...”, this is the important part “...traditionally it is considered discourteous to heckle this new Member’s first delivery in the House.” If you, Hon. Attorney General, feel that you should be permitted then I will allow everyone to proceed as they wish during Dr. Nanda Gopaul’s maiden presentation.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs [Mr. Nandlall]: I do not feel so at all.
Mdm. Speaker: Please proceed Dr. Gopaul, and I trust that your Members would have more respect for your presentation.
Dr. Gopaul: Thank you Mdm. Speaker. I was saying that the PPP/C Government believes in even-handed development of this country. That is the reason why when you move around this country you see development and progress everywhere. When you go to Linden you will see a new hospital with all amenities and facilities. When you go to Region 1 you will see the same thing. If you look at schools and hospitals all over you will see the development of schools, new secondary schools being constructed, our colleagues mentioned some just a while ago, and technical schools. Technical educational has improved tremendously throughout the length and breadth of this country and not only resides in Georgetown and New Amsterdam; it is all over, in Skeldon and every other part of this country, Essequibo and elsewhere, Linden included.
We see these developments, but these developments came against the backdrop of massive debt burden inherited by the PPP/C administration. It came against the backdrop of many infrastructural areas that were lacking, where development had not taken place in excess of a decade. Roads were in disrepair. In those days, when some of us were driving around in some of the areas as dodge the holes they call you ‘Pot Hole Dodgers’, they said that you just acquired a PhD by dodging the big craters that you have on the road. Those were what we inherited.
If you were to travel from Skeldon to Parika you will find a smooth traffic. The hours we had to wait to cross the ferry at the Berbice end to go from Rosignol to New Amsterdam, those long hours no longer prevail. We have a bridge which can take us over to New Amsterdam within minutes. If that is not development, then I do not know what it is.
I would want to believe that looking at the issue of this Budget we will discuss and say, “We want to see the following happen”. I have heard some colleagues talk about increasing pension rates, but we have to take into consideration what happen before, where we were and where we have gone since this Government has taken over. Some would have said we want to see increase in salaries by twenty percent, but you could have salary increases by twenty percent and you could have consequences which will negate those increases. You have to analyse and you have to discuss where this money will come from. You have to take into consideration that when we make these demands, we must try to find out where the money will come from to meet all the areas for national development in an even-handed way.
In 1998, if I may look at minimum wages in the country, we will find that it was $11,445 per month. By the end of 2011 it is $34,055 per month, an increase of about 197% over that period. Equally, when you look at the rate of inflation during that period you find that the          overall rate aggregate of 1998 to 2011 was 83.3% or at an average of 5.9% per annum. The average wage increase during that period will amount to 14.07%. So, you can see that this was actually protecting the real wages of the workers unlike what Professor Thomas said occurred in the 1975 to 1985 period.
When you look at the employment situation, the country has created employment in almost every sector of the economy. When the crisis hit the world, Guyana was on scale. This is a testimony to prudent management, dedicated management and management who had the interest of Guyana at heart and who could have seen ahead of time.
I have heard some very nasty criticisms being made of President Jagdeo, but I want to state here that I am proud to have been associated with President Jagdeo as a leader and a visionary. Had it not been for his stewardship, this country would not have been where it is today.
The Minister of Finance indicated, and I am going to skip the issues of what caused this country to go where it was, the type of repression we experienced in 1985, in the 80s right up to 1989 when the budget was described by no other but Mr. Eusi Kwayana right in this Parliament as a vampire budget and when it was described by some of my colleagues at the back as the Empty Rice Pot (ERP), with every race punishing. I am going to skip some of the reasons, and I am not going to detail the oppression which took place in Linden when my colleagues were tear-gassed in their prison cell. I am going to skip those. It is documented in Resistance and Change and I have quotations. But I want to say that fundamentally what has happened with wages, and why we are talking about increases now. Some of my colleagues on the other side, right in this House in 1984 moved to upturn an Act of Parliament that restored increments in the Tamil case against Guyana Sugar Corporation by passing a Labour Amendment Act. We had to challenge that division. We had to take the issue right up to the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Appeal found that the legislation was against natural justice and was colourable and the struck down parts of that law. So increments were restored and some people benefited.
We should never ever get back to the point where our people will feel oppressed or where they will have to go to the streets to demand and to get their rights. These should be given to them by our leaders who are legislators and who are in the decision making process. When nearly 6,000 public servants in the 80s were sent home under the guise of retrenchment they were given a single day notice and some of them were paid nearly a month’s pay in lieu of notice and in some cases some were given one weeks pay. Thousands did not benefit from any Severance Pay whatsoever. The PPP/C ensuring that justice was done to workers enacted the Termination of the Employment and Severance Pay Act to bring benefits to the workers of this country, and to ensure that people with years of service are given payment to a maximum of fifty two weeks in cases of those with long services.
We enacted other legislation in occupations health and safety, anti decimation legislation; we also enacted the Trade Union Recognition Act, an issue which surfaced in this country since the 1950s and went to Parliament several times but was unable to see the light of day. The PPP/C ensured that so that workers can have a Union of their choice through a democratic process. Having done that and taken these steps I believe that the Guyanese workers are very comfortable. We do not believe here in the PPP/C that the wages up to this day are at the right level, but is has to be dispensed based on the ability of the country to meet all other needs. The fact of the matter is that when u take into consideration the concession made by the Hon. Minister in his budget speech about increasing the threshold to $600,000 per year, in effect what is happening is that you are giving the workers at the bottom one additional months pay right off the bat which is equivalent to an eight percent salary increase. That is being given to the workers immediately. The budget also caters for an additional increase in 2012, so workers will get something more.
The issues of employment opportunities, and we have heard discussions on bauxite. The budget indicated that 450 new jobs will be created by additional investments by Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI). There is another company called First Bauxite Inc., they will invest according to the Minister of Finance, another $120 million in Bonasika. This investment will see additional employment opportunities. There was a time when bauxite was absolutely dead in this country; it is being resuscitated.
In terms of Manganese, the Minister outlined that US $300 million will see 1000 jobs created at the development phase and 500 permanent jobs at the mature operations. Already, the Minister of Finance reported that 250 jobs have been created with US $50 million invested thus far. This is also a new area being explored, an area that was condemned for several years.
The Minister then dealt with uranium and rare earth elements. He drew attention to three companies that are advanced stages of drilling in the Kurupung area. This is yet another job creation venture which will see hundreds of job creation opportunities. We are not only going into mining and these sorts of things.
The Government has been criticised, and I could not understand anyone with any sense of decency and commitment to our children of this country, especially those who are unfortunate, to criticise the Government’s One Laptop Per Family Programme (OLPF). This programme will see 90,000 computers distributed to poor families. It is bringing new ideas to some homes and children who never saw a computer in life, which never even played with a calculator. They will have that opportunity. Due to that we will see these people becoming equipped and computer literate and more and more jobs being created in this country. Three thousand jobs in the ITC sector is already here with ten call centres in this country.
Dr. Persaud spoke about the fibre optic cable giving access to people in the most remote parts of this country, in some areas people who have been fleeced by the service providers in this country charging $10,000 and $9,000 per month for people to access the internet. This investment is done with people’s development in mind. My colleagues are saying that this budget does not have human development in focus. Well if this is not human development then I do not know what it is. It is anticipated that 15,000 jobs will be created in the ITC sector during the next few years.
The Budget also gave us a review of what happened in the agricultural sector last year. It says that for last year 8000 farmers have been trained in their areas, in crop and animal husbandry and farm management.  This is a new input. We may believe that because we are farmers we just go and plant a crop and that is it. There are new techniques being devised in agriculture and we want to be abreast with time. Therefore, eight thousand farmers benefited last year. Much more will benefit this year. We hope to cover the length and breadth of this country to ensure that our farmers understand new techniques and new management in agriculture so that they can optimise their production and productivity.
Last year also, when the Barama Workers faced difficulties and they were laid off the Government had a subsidised programme where many of them benefited from computer training, some who never went to school and some who never handled a computer. The vast majority of those workers are now literate in the use of computers.
We now move to GuySuCo and the out-of-crop period on the West Coast of Demerara and in the Berbice Area, the Government placed computers at these centres like they did in Linden and the persons not working during the out-of-crop period were all trained. Even housewives were encouraged to go and make use of this facility.
We hope that during this period the Ministry of Labour will, with these legislation passed, and with the influx of new businesses in this country.
I will try to wrap up even earlier than that Mdm. Speaker. I am saying that during this period, with the influx of new businesses in this country especially those in mining, we will move to have our inspectorate division visiting these locations. We are targeting to visit all the factories and to certify and ensure that they are in keeping with the occupations health and safety laws and all the other relevant labour legislation. In fact, what we will do also and are doing at the same time is to visit as many workplaces to ensure that the labour laws are observed and that there is no child in any business entity. The Ministry of Labour is coordinating with the National Insurance Scheme (NIS). As we visit some entities we are looking to ensure that the people are registered and that they pay the NIS. When NIS visits other locations, there is an exchange of views and reporting so that we need not go to some of the places, but there might be a necessity where both the NIS and the Ministry of Labour will have to go to some of the entities.
We are actively investigating any form of accident, whether fatal or not, that is reported. Under the Act is compulsory for employers to report an accident. If they fail to do so they can be prosecuted, and we are moving to prosecute those who fail to report accidents at workplace. As such, the Ministry of Labour is very active in that regard. We are also seeking to revamp many cooperatives which are either riddled with mismanagement or in some cases not being able to deliver; we are monitoring those. In cases of some that badly need management, we are putting inter-management committees in consultation with the members and we are hoping that we will be able to revamp, because the cooperative movement in this country has significant assets and can create employment. In fact when you examine what has happened, there is an asset base of nearly $15 billion as large as many commercial banks. We are working to ensure that the Co-operatives function in an efficient manner to benefit their members. There are some very large ones in the trade union movement and the Police and the Guyana Defense Force (GDF) Co-operatives also have quite a lot of assets which could benefit their members. We are monitoring those.
The Board of Industrial Training has been able to train nearly 3,000 persons last year. Minister Nadir, when he was Minister of Labour, was able to introduce a new programme of Heavy Duty Equipment Operator, because we have a short supply of that. I want to say that the moment those persons graduated jobs were available for them. Ninety percent of those persons trained were school-leavers and they have all been engaged in employment actively, some even in higher paying jobs than public servants do get from the private sector. They go and they get very skilled jobs in that area.
We have also been able to train patient care assistance workers for the Palms and some for the Linden Hospital at institutions like the Georgetown Hospital, and we are going to continue to do so this year. The apprenticeship programme is also important, where we train our young people at places like Port Mourant Training School and some of the technical institutes, but those are more qualified and skilled programmes and the Board of Industrial Training certifies those programmes. We are putting emphasis on that.
I am sure the Minister of Public Service will tell us about the other scholarship programmes we have in the country – those that will produce doctors unprecedented in the history of this country. Nearly 300 doctors will soon graduate and return home.
There was a time when public servants could not even buy a motor vehicle. Cars were not available. Some who were in this House long enough – not me – could not get duty-free even at this level. Today, nearly 2,000 public servants benefit from duty free concession. When that is checked it amounts to a minimum of $40,000 per month in concession.
Therefore, I want to end by saying this country belongs to all of us. The PPP/C does not believe it has the wherewithal all the time, it knows everything, and does not depend on anyone, although we can run this country as ably as we have done. We believe that a vibrant opposition can play a role in the development of this country, and we believe we would not be asking them too much to play that role so that the people would see an effective democracy at work. Let us put it to work; let us ensure that we put people first. Our country at the same time must see development so that our children can enjoy a better way of life.
Thank you very much. [Applause]