By Fareeza Haniff
[www.inewsguyana.com] – Executive Member of the main opposition – A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) – Carl Greenidge says that the Party will not be participating in any budget consultations with the government.
During an interview with iNews on Thursday, January 23, the shadow Finance Minister said that the government has not been forthcoming with the information that the APNU requested.
Greenidge admitted that the APNU was indeed invited to budget talks by Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh. However, according to Greenidge, the Minister did not provide certain information which he promised, thus the APNU refused to partake in any discussions in that regard.
Recently, Dr. Singh accused the Leader of the APNU, David Granger of lying about not being invited to any budget consultations. Dr. Singh in a statement said that an email was sent to Greenidge inviting the APNU to discuss the 2014 budget.
When asked about this, Greenidge admitted to receiving the email from Dr. Singh.
He told iNews, “I did receive an email from Dr. Singh inviting the opposition parties to budget talks… I responded to him. I received the email on 15th or 16th January….seemed to be sent on 13th. There have been no budget talks of any consequence…that is the first inaccuracy in Dr. Singh’s presentation. Secondly, after that first meeting at which Dr. Singh promised to provide the information that had been set out on several occasions to him, and he also promised to react my proposal of September 9, 2013 which was a proposal about how the discussions would unfold, the process.
“He has to date not responded to that proposal and he and his leader [President, Donald Ramotar] had agreed that there would be an exchange of letters, in other words he could send me something, I would send him something and when the main committees would work on the basis of those two letters. It was never done. So, it is rather unfortunate for Dr. Singh to see it fit to be accusing the Leader of the Opposition of lying.”
Greenidge further explained, “When he did not submit the information he promised, I wrote to him saying we will not be having further meetings. That is since last year and in spite of that, he did not respond.”
The APNU member noted that the time has now elapsed for any kind of budget consultations, since the government would have already completed their preparations.
