The Hon. Asot Michael M.P.
Representative from St. Peter
Constituency
Contribution to Budget Debate 2014
Parliament
February 03, 2014
Thank you, Madame Speaker. I rise to make my contribution to Budget 2014 debate.
Today, I would like to examine four areas in the Budget that will negatively impact the citizens and residents of the St. Peter Constituency, and adversely affect all the good people of Antigua and Barbuda. I would like to examine:
i) The under-funding for the Electoral Commission (ABEC) in the Budget;
ii) The untenable conditions at the Mount St. John Medical Center;
iii) The burdensome debt which the UPP regime has incurred and continues to incur; and
iv) The failure to expand economic opportunities, caused by the weight of high taxes, which in turn negatively impacts foreign direct investment and job creation.
First, however, I wish to extend congratulations to the Member from St. George for her hands-on approach in managing the official funeral for Sir Adolphus Freeland, last Thursday January 30. From start to finish, the responsibilities of the Member for St. George were executed with precision. Congratulations.
Sir Adolphus Freeland was a highly regarded Member of Parliament. His role as General Secretary of the AT&LU for five years, 1971 to 1976, prepared him for his ensuing responsibilities as a Minister of Labour.
Sir George Walter was also General Secretary of the AT&LU before he became Premier or Head of Government. The Honourable Lionel Hurst Senior, before Sir George, was General Secretary of the AT&LU for 13 years, and then he became the first Minister of Labour. I note also that the Member for St. John’s Rural West was an employee of the AT&LU; he revealed on Thursday that his studies at the Coady Institute were afforded him by the AT&LU.
46 North Street was certainly a great training ground for political advancement. All of us owe a debt to the AT&LU for creating a new Antigua, a new economy, and new opportunities for achieving self-fulfillment. We should not be plotting to destroy that 75 year-old Union.
Madame Speaker: The so-called Public Sector Transformation strategy, appearing on page 46 of the Budget Statement, does not tell the whole story. The Finance Minister’s remarks only skimpily describe the process taking place. The AT&LU sees this Public Sector Transformation strategy as being no more than an attempt to deprive the AT&LU of the revenues it derives, as bargaining agent, from all Non-Established workers as dues.
By proposing a single-tier service and making every Government employee an Established Worker—as proposed by the Public Sector Transformation Unit—the AT&LU President discerns an attempt to kill the AT&LU.
The money which the AT&LU derives from the weekly and monthly dues of the Non-Established workers is a significant portion of the AT&LU’s revenues. If those revenues are diverted to the ABPSA when all government employees are classified as civil servants, the AT&LU will be killed.
Madame Speaker: I believe that Section 106(5) of the Antigua and Barbuda Constitution Order stipulates that all public officers are to be represented by the Antigua and Barbuda Civil Service Association—the ABPSA. AT&LU will therefore be cut off from its major source of revenue, if the plan is adopted. That cannot be right.
The AT&LU opposes the so-called public sector transformation for another reason. The labour experts who have studied our government service have indicated that merging both the Established and Non-Established work force is a task near-impossible. The differences in benefits and salaries are just too vast. To bridge those existing gaps is far too expensive—the horse has already bolted.
To eliminate the category of Non-Established is also to rob the Ministers of the flexibility in hiring experts and others that will be required from time-to-time. That plan ought to be stopped. In all likelihood, you won’t have the time to change the law before the elections. If you should try, the Labour Party will reverse the plan as soon as it becomes the government after March, anyway.
Madame Speaker:
Elections are not going to be won or lost on the basis of a threat to the 75 year-old union which we love. Although the Union has 7,000 members, the AT&LU like all unions, is less influential than in days past. Nevertheless, in marginal constituencies, support from the AT&LU is critical. Madame Speaker: Public Sector Transformation is a disguise that we will address frontally when the moment arrives. I prefer to move on to speaking about the planning for Elections 2014 and its management by the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission
Madame Speaker: Elections cannot be successfully held if the Electoral Commission is not properly funded. In 2009, the General Elections were not very well executed. Voting in several polling divisions began very late because of a printer malfunction. Sir Gerald Watt subsequently reported that he had to plead and to beg in order to get the money required to conduct general elections. That cannot be fair.
The Commission, weeks before the 2009 elections, purchased a printer for $17,000when a printer costing $97,000 was required. The cheap printer malfunctioned when they put it to work, and the elections were very poorly conducted.
Member from Rural West: That cannot be allowed to happen again. The Electoral Commission must be provided with all the money required to conduct elections well. The Parliament is supposed to be the guardians of our democracy. We are not hired by the people in order to diminish their democracy.
I note however that the amount budgeted for the ABEC in 2014 is $4,676,783 (on white page 87). That amount exceeds 2013 expenditure by about ($600,000) six hundred thousand dollars. Salaries and Wages of permanent staff, as seen on page 30, will total $2,829,848 dollars.
I find it very hard to believe that the ABEC will hire more than 100 additional staff, contract trainers, print 48,000 high-tech cards, buy time on radio and television and in the Newspapers, defend multiple lawsuits, and enter into all manner of contracts in 2014, an election year, and those expenses will cost only six hundred thousand dollars more than 2013, a non-election year. Something is wrong.
Nowhere in the estimates do I see a breakdown for the expenses, except for salaries and wages and allowances (on orange page 30). Help me to understand: Where are the expenses explained? How can this Honourable House be assured that the 2014 general elections will not be a repeat of the 2009 debacle?
The people of St. Peter can recall that they did not have an opportunity to vote until1:00 pm on Election Day 2009. Can I assure them that they will be able to commence exercising their franchise at 6:00 am until 6:00 pm? I want the assurance, in advance, Mr. Prime Minister. Elections must be free and fair; and, only if the money is sufficient, can that happen. Where is the June 2013 ABEC Report? Or, the December Report?
Madame Speaker: I am aware that the Boundaries case and the re-registration case are before the courts. Can we imagine the confusion if, following claims and objections, that could last up to three weeks, the Electoral Commission is compelled to move around the registered voters because boundaries change? I ask how is that to be done in time for a general election due by March 12 2014?
We are less than 40 days and 40 nights removed from the day on which general elections are due. Take 28 days out for claims and objections, and fewer than two weeks remain for changing constituency boundaries. What confusion will we witness? And, what confusion will further result when the Appeals Court rules in favour of the Labour Party in the re-registration case, as is likely to be the outcome on February 14!
The decisions taken by the Rural West representative were classic examples of procrastination, delay, lateness. Madame Speaker: He was forewarned. Accept the Report of the Boundaries Commission, start changing boundaries, and a lawsuit is sure to follow, he was warned. We have had to call in the referee.
I caution the UPP regime to desist from taking continuously those harmful decisions that will further destroy our country. We are already perceived as a place where incompetence rules. Please do not allow the 2014 elections to confirm the view that the UPP Regime cannot do anything right.
Madame Speaker: Whether the challenge is posed by holding on-time elections or managing a shrinking economy, the results appear to be the same: Failure.
I waded through the debt-reporting section of the Recurrent and Development Estimates at the very back of the publication, beginning at page 63.
(After page 406 of the Estimates, seventy separate pages are added that are paginated differently and colored orange and yellow. Please tell the typists to ensure that the lines on the left, identifying the accounts, fall on the same plane as the figures on the right. I have to engage in guess work on pages 63 and 64.)
The National Debt is broken down into two: Domestic and External.
The Domestic Debt stands at one billion, six hundred and thirty-nine point two million ($1,639.2) dollars, the statement claims.
The External Debt, we are told, stands at one billion, one hundred and ninety-two million ($1,192.0) dollars, the statement also claims.
Together, these two amounts total two billion, eight hundred and thirty-one point two($2,831.2) million dollars. This amount, we have been told, is the National Debt.
Yet, you have failed to include in an understandable manner, several other borrowings that the Government has either guaranteed, or borrowed through a statutory body, or the government owes to statutory bodies and corporations, businesses and workers.
How is the $550 million dollars owed to Social Security treated? $220 million semed to have vanished in this Budget! On page 65, item #2, an amount of $330 million dollars is acknowledged, with an interest payment of $5,953,751 to be made in 2014. Neither the smaller amount ($330 million), or the larger amount ($550 million), is included in the debt stock, however, so that the National Debt is significantly understated. Is that a trick?
How is the amount owed to Medical Benefits treated? On page 65, item #3, an amount of $125,852,116 dollars is listed as the debt. That amount is not included in the National Debt either.
Where is the amount owed to the Board of Education? What about the amount owed to State Insurance? What about the amount owed to Mount St. John Medical Center? What about the debt owed to West Indies Oil Company? The debt owed to the Antigua Power Company? The debt owed to Half Moon Bay? The debt you owe to civil servants in the form of back pay, overtime, and unpaid allowances? Where are they? What is wrong is to be made right, you said.
The APUA debts for the reverse osmosis plants are not accounted for, here; is that an APUA debt? Has it been guaranteed by the Central Government?
The Wadadli Chinese Power Plant is accounted for on page 69, item listed as 42; but, where is the original amount of the two loans totaling US$52.5 million dollars? Is the $5 million in payment of interest, as indicated, going towards that loan in 2014? Can the power plant generate that much in profits in order to meet the obligation? Plus, $8,514,553 in repayment of principal has been budgeted in 2014 (Line 42, page 69). Will that power plant generate that much even in revenue? What about the operating expenses? That plant consumes inordinate amounts of fuel (HFO/Bunker C) and diesel and lubricating oil.
Why have the reports, scheduled to be published each month, disappeared from the Newspaper since last September 2013? Why isn’t the Newspaper publishing the monthly consumption, production, and other data that usually are communicated to the public?
Why the interest payment of ($2,401,955) two million, four hundred and one thousand, nine hundred and fifty-five dollars on the first of two loans to build the air terminal at the V.C. Bird Airport? Can you tell us about that? Isn’t there a moratorium on both interest and principal? Why has the Parliament never seen this contract? Maybe that is a silly question. You have brought only one contract here. The creditor insisted that you obey the law. (I believe that to be Credit Suisse, for the airport upgrade, at Item 5 and 6 on page 70, where zeros appear).
What about the Venezuelan loan of August 2009, which is listed in item #39 on page 69 as US50 million dollars? First, when the Minister of Finance told us how he would be spending the money, it totaled US$48.5 million. What happened to the additional US$1.5 million? Where is that accounted for? The Minister made the announcement of the loan on Crusader Radio, on August 13 2009, not in Parliament. What about the agreement? Do you have any plans to bring it here to Parliament? It is noted that you plan to pay $3,873,420 in interest payments, in 2014. Can we see the loan agreement? The Prime Minister told us that he received a telephone call from Mr. Chavez at 1:00 am that August 2009 morning. Can we see the loan agreement in this parliament?
Madame Speaker: Can I bring the attention of this Honourable House to items #6 through items #17 of page 66 of the Estimates. This Parliament has yet to see the loan documents, as required by law, and yet to give its authorization to borrow on the Regional Government Securities Market, the following excessive amounts:
On June 30 2011: US$13,000,000 million= EC$35 mil
On July 27 2011: $20,000,000 million
On July 28 2011: $5,530,000
There is no listing for 2012, so there must be a mistake!
On March 28 2013: $10,000,000 million
On July 31 2013: US$13,000,000 million=EC$35 mil
On September 6 2013: $17,990,000
OnSeptember26 2013: US$5,050,000=EC$13,635,000
On October 9 2013: $20,000,000
On November 13 2013: $20,920,000
On December 5 2013: $10,000,000
On December 17 2013: $15,000,000
You borrowed from Royal Bank: $2,750,000 in 2012.
You borrowed from SAGICOR $7,500,000 in 2011
You borrowed from ScotiaBank a sum and restructured the same in the amount of $18,131,199, and in August 2013: $5,000,000 again from ScotiaBank.
In November 2009, you went to Stanford’s bank, ECAB, and reconsolidated $105,376,871 dollars in loans.
You would go to the ACB and get $3,500,000 in a demand loan. You would return again for a $58 million dollar restructured loan.
You would go to the Global bank of Commerce and contract another loan for US$1,568,204 dollars.
At the Antigua and Barbuda Investment Bank, you would get another $238,549,064 dollars. And again, another $33,000,000.
Can the Minister please explain item #12 on page 67 where you borrowed $11 million to purchase the Food City building. And further explain item #18 where you indicate purchase of a turbine in 2005 by way of a loan exceeding $10 million dollars RBTT.
Madame Speaker:
I have not listed the amounts borrowed from the Caribbean Union Bank, the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (RBTT), First Caribbean International bank, or the East Caribbean Central Bank.
This has been a tax, borrow and splurge government. Where are the assets from all these borrowings? They do not exist. The outgoing government has splurged, feted and thrown away millions of our money.
We will inherit their debts. We will inherit their mal-spending. We will face their troubled legacies. But we are ready for the challenges. We are ready to for the rescue. We have done it before, we will do it again. The end is nigh. A new beginning is around the corner. God bless the Antigua and Barbuda nation. God bless the people of St. Peter’s. We are ready! Thank you.
- Honorable Asot Michael
