– minister of business

NEWLY elected People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) presidential candidate Irfaan Ali may have to revise the big promises and economic projections he made at a recent meeting with party supporters at Leonora, West Coast Demerara.
According to Alliance For Change (AFC) executive and Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin, Ali’s claims of US$500M in investments within the first year of his party’s re-election may very well be nothing to brag about.

At the party’s meeting last Saturday, Ali, who was the main speaker, made a few remarkable statements.

“We already have a plan and programme that will see more than US$500M invested in Guyana from year one under the next People’s Progressive Party/Civic government. We did this before without oil and gas and we’ll do it even better in the next government on a much larger scale, with the arrival of oil and gas,” he told the public meeting.
At an AFC meeting on Wednesday, Gaskin fact-checked the statements made by the PPP presidential candidate.

“For the current year, GO-Invest alone is projecting to facilitate investments valued at US$300-$400M and these projections do not include investments in the mining or in the petroleum sectors, or in the retail and commercial sectors which don’t benefit from investment incentives,” the business minister pointed out.
He added: “So this plan or programme that Mr. Ali is promoting, is not unusually ambitious and he may wish to revise his figures upwards if he is seeking to compete with the coalition government on its track record on investment.”

SUDDEN SWITCH
When Ali assured his supporters that oil benefits would be realised within “year one” of the PPP in office, he appeared to have contradicted claims made by PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo.

“Even the oil companies, because they talk to me, they don’t have such a rosy picture of the fortunes of Guyana changing drastically, dramatically in the timeframe that we think it will happen. It will happen, but it will happen not from 2020 to 2025; those will be rough years for us… There is a timeline to all of these things, it’s not going to happen immediately,” Jagdeo stressed at a public setting in December 2018, according to the Guyana Times.

Meanwhile, the online news agency ‘Inewsguyana’ in the same year had headlined: “Oil and Gas sector: Jagdeo says, Govt ‘selling dreams’ to Guyanese on benefits.”

Recalling these occurrences, Gaskin said: “It is also interesting to note that Mr. Ali seems to been banking on the arrival of oil and gas, as he put it, and we know that his party leader Mr. Jagdeo has accused the government — when our government spoke about oil and gas and the plans for the sector — of ‘selling dreams’. And, I think he [Jagdeo] is reported to have stated that the benefits of oil and gas will not be seen until 2025. So it is notable that Mr. Ali is now promoting, all of a sudden, the benefits of this new and exciting sector.”

Sticking to what the party has always affirmed, the minister said the benefits of oil and gas are already being seen in terms of investment, revenues and job-creation which will increase exponentially over the next two years.

WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?
In his celebration of being elected presidential candidate, Ali also addressed the issue of job-creation.

“… in the next PPP/Civic government we’ll be creating more than 50,000 new jobs all across this country,” which he defended would be created through means such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

To this, Gaskin responded: “He should also explain to the Guyanese people whether these 50,000 new jobs are for Guyanese people, or whether they are for some other group to whom he may be beholden.”

Gaskin said the coalition government is best placed to manage Guyana’s petroleum revenues and to ensure that Guyanese businesses are the main beneficiaries of these revenues.

“The AFC is not amused by the implications inherent in the following statement made by Mr. Ali: ‘We did this before without oil and gas and we’ll do it even better in the next government on a much larger scale, with the arrival of oil and gas’. The party is of the view that the PPP/C should not be given the opportunity to do what it did before on a much larger-scale,” Gaskin said.

He added: “It should also be noted that Mr. Ali has, from year one, repeatedly accused the current government of mismanaging the economy and he has conjured up all sorts of data to support his case. His analyses in most cases have been flawed and self-serving; and it would be interesting to hear from him what are the specific economic policies that he plans to pursue in the unlikely event of his party winning an election.”

The minister’s call for Ali to speak on his “specific economic policies” comes at the time when the party leader is being accused of academic fraud.

It is alleged that he used a fake transcript to pursue a master’s degree programme at an Indian university and was not the holder of a first degree prior to this undertaking.
However, this pales in comparison to present matters such as the cases before the court, where he has been accused of defrauding the State of some $174M in his role in the notorious Pradoville land-sale scandal.

Grassroots supporters of the PPP/C were outraged on January 19, 2019, moments after it was confirmed that the 38-year-old Ali was elected as the party’s presidential candidate.
Despite the outcry among supporters, PPP/C party leaders continue to throw their support behind their pick.