| By Kiana Wilburg Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon sharply criticized yesterday, A Partnership for National Unity’sCabinet Secretary,Dr. Roger Luncheon(APNU) Shadow Minister of Finance, Carl Greenidge for his recent legal challenge aimed at prohibiting the government from accessing external financing and pursing developmental projects.At his press conference at the Office of the President,NFL Jerseys China, Dr. Luncheon asserted that Greenidge is clearly, “barking up the wrong tree.”The Presidential Advisor noted, that Guyana as a developing country has a progress agenda which is significantly dependent on extra-budgetary financing. This has to do with monies provided outside of the country’s annual budget.Those external sources,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, he said,Cheap Jerseys NFL China, have traditionally been the domestic and the foreign investors who have made contributions to Guyana’s development programs at the cost of accessing finance.Dr. Luncheon asserted that the second and perhaps the lesser expensive sources have been the Inter-American Bank, the World Bank, and the Caribbean Development Bank,Wholesale Cheap Jerseys, among others as well as the country’s bilateral partners. He mentioned that these bilateral partners include India and the People’s Republic of China.These two Asian countries,Cheap Jerseys, he said, have provided Guyana and other developing countries with grants and loans. Loans, he said, have been given at concessionary terms which include lower interest rates compared to the commercial borrowing rates the government would occasionally resort to. He added that other concessionaryAPNU’s Shadow Minister of Finance, Carl Greenidgeterms include “pretty long” repayment periods and generally, a moratorium on the first payments.The Head of the Presidential Secretariat said that external funding is not a recent development or invention of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) administration.Dr. Luncheon added that he finds it unbelievable that Greenidge, who served as the Finance Minister under the People’s National Congress (PNC), has decided to engage the court in litigation to prevent Guyana from accessing external funding through loans.The rationale as Cabinet understood it, was that, there is no authority for the PPP/C administration in the absence of a sitting Parliament to engage in loan approvals and inherently in developmental works.Dr. Luncheon alluded to the irony of Greenidge’s actions in approaching the court when he would have done the same during his time as Finance Minister under the PNC.The Cabinet Secretary said, “The current shadow Finance Minister is contending that there wasn’t and there isn’t provision for such. Cabinet noted that this resort to the courts flew in the face of two realities; the more obvious one is that this has been done and continues to be done by past executive governments.“So one can go back even into the PNC period and show under similar circumstances when there was no Parliament and Mr. Greenidge was involved with the donor community on the same purpose, that today, he is taking the PPP/Civic administration to court.”The second reality he spoke to was the fact that the Constitution has nothing which expressly forbids the executive government from pursuing developmental projects and engaging in loan agreements during this period. This,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, Dr. Luncheon said, is what Cabinet has been legally advised on.He said that the Constitution actually provides for the executive , in the face of the Parliament not sitting, to preserve its powers which include access to financing, as well as those other functions that have been provided for in the Constitution and by statutes for the executive government.Dr. Luncheon asserted, “The feeling is that Mr. Greenidge is barking up the wrong tree. And no doubt, with the interest of the administration in pursuing development in Guyana, he may be in the courts a lot.”Greenidge had earlier this month, filed a writ at the High Court to prevent the government from accessing a US$17M loan it recently received from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).The defendants in the case are Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, and Attorney General, Anil Nandlall.According to the writ filed by Greenidge’s lawyer, Roysdale Forde, the plaintiff is asking that the proceeds under the Loan Agreements signed between Dr. Singh and the IDB be paid into the Consolidated Fund.The politician is also asking that there be no withdrawal of the proceeds of the said Loan Agreements except by an Appropriation Act as directed by Article 217 of the Constitution.His lawyer also asked the court to hear and subsequently grant a Conservatory Order to ensure that the Minister of Finance and any of his agents cannot spend or permit such as it relates to the loans, pending the hearing and determination of the case.Following this action, Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn expressed that one can only hope that the recently commenced US$47M road project is not subjected to delay or obstructed by the Opposition’s affinity for court action.Benn made those among other comments during the launch of the West Coast Demerara Road Improvement Project, where he also expressed disappointment with the challenges faced by the government during the Tenth Parliament.Despite Benn’s hopes for the project to be spared legal challenge, Greenidge maintains that if the Minister and the government wish for the road to be continued unhindered, “they have to live within the law. That simply means that no new projects should be started at this stage.”However, Dr. Luncheon said yesterday that while President Donald Ramotar’s recent return from India saw the formal agreement to build the bypass road along with concessionary financing being provided, he will in the meantime, wait patiently to see “how the likes of Mr. Greenidge will engage the administration and the citizenry” regarding the funds for that developmental project. |
