Budget apathy shows Teacher Clarke has work to do
Published:Tuesday | February 14, 2023 | 1:18 AM
When Governor General Sir Patrick Allen delivers the Throne Speech at today’s opening of Parliament, many Jamaicans say they expect the administration’s plans and Budget to make no difference to their families’ lives and livelihoods.
While some persons whose opinions were sought dismissed the parliamentary ritual as unimportant, others lobbied for the head of state to clearly detail the achievements and failures from last year’s pledges.
Several others canvassed by The Gleaner on Monday were ambivalent about the contents of the Estimates of Expenditure for fiscal year 2023-24 which will be tabled by Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke. They argue that the Budget is mostly over everybody’s head.
That means Clarke has a mountain to climb in selling the so-called Citizen’s Guide – an explainer that seeks to simplify the technical gobbledygook of how the Government’s revenues and expenditure are calculated.
The guide was implemented in 2019 and is distributed in national newspapers as well as electronically.
It distils key achievements of the Government, explains how the Budget is prepared, and shows how financing is found and where expenditure is directed.
High fines imposed under the newly enforced Road Traffic Act were high on the agenda of respondents interviewed on the street. The Budget will unveil how much revenue the Government is expecting to rake in from traffic tickets and fines for the upcoming year.
Another respondent expressed distress over the fleecing of $2 billion from the Stocks & Securities Limited account of Olympic great Usain Bolt and urged Clarke to find fiscal space to repay the stolen money.
Taxi operator Raymond Gordon has reservations about the 2023-24 Budget because he thinks the Government does not keep its word.
“I think the ordinary Jamaicans have detached themselves from Government and government spending, because it makes no difference. It’s not like they ask your opinion on what to do, they are just doing and telling us what to do, so whether them spend or no spend, it’s neither here nor there,” said Gordon in a roadside interview on Monday.
“Andrew Holness has to be careful. He was seen as the hope; that’s why he received such a landslide. But what we are seeing is the same kind of politics, so I am telling him, he needs to put on back him Clarks and come back to earth,” the cabbie said, referencing the prime minister.
For technician Fitzalbert Forbes, neither the Throne Speech nor the Budget has any value to ordinary people.
“What the [finance] minister has to do does not impact poor people, because sometimes they say things they are going to do and at the end of the day, what they say they will do is not done, and nobody says why,” Forbes told The Gleaner.
Payroll account Moneshia Taylor believes that ordinary people know little about government accounting.
“I want to know the breakdown for each parish, each community, or even how they do it. What criteria determine what is allocated where, as opposed to this rural area versus their urban area,” the accountant said.
“These are the things that I am much more interested in,” she added.
And accounting clerk Lysandra Osphall is insisting on transparency.
“I would like to know the way the Government uses taxpayers’ money. I don’t know how much it is costing the Government to fix roads, to build road signs. It would good to see what they are allocating to schools, the development of the inner cities,” she stated.
Phillip Stewart, a Kingston tailor who outfits workers at a number of corporate organisations, says parliamentary opening speeches mean little to him. But he acknowledges that his business is impacted by the provisions of the Budget.
“Over the years, I don’t expect to hear anything at all that will benefit me. My clients are impacted because they hold back on everything until the Budget is read. If the work is even available, they have to wait on the Budget,” Stewart told The Gleaner.