Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo on Monday slammed the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) for what he described as deceptive politics even as that party sought to blame on the government for the slowing down of the economy. Nagamootoo in an invited comment to members of the media outside of the Parliament chambers said that the downward spiral of Guyana’s economy started under the PPP Government’s, which

was voted out of office last year May. Nagamootoo’s remarks were directed at claims by PPP/C front bencher, Irfaan Ali, who made the accusation during the opening day of the 2016 budget debate.
“When you listen to Ali opening the debate saying that the economy is in a slide and is weakening, he is scooting figures that have been invented by him. He is saying that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has fallen from US$363M in 2011 to US$125M in 2015. That is blatantly untruthful. Because when I checked in 2011 the FDI was US$165M. So where did he get US$363 from? Nagamootoo, who is also Leader of the Government’s business in Parliament queried.
He reminded that the APNU+AFC Government took over office in the middle of 2015 and could not be held accountable for a slide that started in 2011. He said the administration will continue to work towards “creating jobs for the people of this country.”
A report by the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in March 2014 had said that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for Guyana shrunk sharply from a total of US$294 million in 2012 to US$214 million in 2013. The Commission had said the most important development took place in the mining and oil and gas exploration sectors, mentioning the US$249 million Guyana Goldfields investment in the Aurora Gold Mine and Repsol and Tullow Oil plan to explore the Kanuku block. The report had also made mentioned the collapse of the PPP’s Government’s plan at the time to build an ethanol plant.