Opposition Member of Parliament, Ganesh Mahipaul stood before the National Assembly earlier today calling President Irfaan Ali’s Men on Mission (MOM) initiative a sham. He said the much-publicized sham is an expensive one as it claimed half a billion dollars from the treasury in 2023 and is slated to draw another $500 million in 2024.
Mahipaul made this allegation during his contribution to the 2024 Budget debate that commenced today.
Essentially, Mahipaul had nothing good to say about the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C) plan for this year. He said that it contains little to nothing for the poor and ordinary man but is packed with goodies for the rich. This stance harmonizes with the overall one taken thus far by the APNU+AFC parliamentary opposition.
Mahipaul said there is a glaring lack of balance in allocations, particularly towards human capital development and support for vulnerable taxpayers.
He claimed that the PPP/C padded the budget with allocations to create an “illusion of inclusion” but there is nothing to support that it is of benefit to the masses.
In this regard, Mahipaul noted that last year, the government spent $500M on the Men on Mission “sham,” $255M on humanitarian activities, $1.7B on the SLED programme, $300M on Small Business Development, and $5B for cost-of-living reliefs.
He said that this year, government budgeted another $500M for the MOM, $255M for humanitarian activities, $5B for the SLED program, $450M for Small Business Development, with over $7B for cost of living reliefs.
Mahipaul said that while these figures “sound promising” they only serve as an illusion.
He challenged the government to provide the public with a list of persons who benefitted from the $500M MOM expenditure of 2023.
The MP charged, “Show us how it was spent, and you will see that it did not benefit the poor and vulnerable. Prove me wrong that it was not pocketed by the already wealthy. Show us the recipients of the $255M allocated for humanitarian activities, provide a breakdown of the $1.7B SLED funds, disclose the beneficiaries of the $300 million Small Business Development, and reveal who received the $5B.”
Mahipaul stressed that the government failed to produce proper documentation and verification of the spending of the significant sums of money, “indicating that these funds were directed towards the regime, their cronies, families, and lackeys—essentially constituting slush fund monies.”
The MP posited that if the government had genuinely conducted a study and earnestly assisted the deserving poor and vulnerable, “We would not witness widespread cries about the cost of living across the country, from Region One to Region 10.”
Further, Mahipaul said that the only persons praising Budget 2024 are the wealthy. He said too that the budget serves to make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
The President’s MOM project was launched in the last quarter of 2022 and there have been several publicized initiatives since then.
