DESPITE political occurrences, the country recorded economic growth of four per cent for the first half of the year.

This was according to Minister of Finance Winston Jordan during an interview on the National Communication’s Network’s ‘Insight’ Programme on the Voice of Guyana, on Saturday.

“At the half year we have grown four per cent year-on-year, which is basically measuring the first half of the year to the same period last year,” said Jordan, adding that it is significant from the current standpoint.

He made the comment to clear the air on doubts which were created by “certain people.” In that regard, Jordan said the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government has kept the economy growing from day one.

The minister recalled that the economy grew in 2015 and later grew again in 2016 by 3.4 per cent. He said although growth was less in 2017, the country recorded the highest growth rate in 2018 which was 4.1 per cent, the highest since 2014.

“When we grew by 4.1 per cent we were coming off a lower base in 2017 because we had only grown by 2 per cent or 1.9 per cent, but growing on a lower base means you recover… but now we are growing at 4 per cent at half year on the higher 2018 base,” said Minister Jordan, adding that with those figures, the outlook is extremely bright.

The latest estimate is for growth to be 4.5 per cent at the end of the year, but he believes that people can do “mischief” to derail the growth.

With the possibility of growth being derailed, Jordan said government will do all in its power to ensure that growth is held in check.

BUOYANT
As efforts to keep things in order continue, the minister pointed out that revenues are continuing to be buoyant.

“This is allowing us to spend in a number of areas…there have been wells in communities, roads, houses and lights where people never had…quite a lot is going on and it is reflective of the fact that we can do these things because our revenue profile has gone up sharply.
“More people are on the tax roll…the opposition tried to beat us on our head about giving amnesty, but it was able to bring us somewhere of $10 billion in arrears…they are all on the tax roll now,” said Minister Jordan.

Tax revenues have been bolstered by the performance of the rice sector and other sectors and the advent of the oil and gas industry.

Persons have been saying that oil is contributing tremendously to the growth of the economy and Minister Jordan agreed, noting that the country has been blessed with the resource.

Oil is coming on stream at a time when what President David Granger termed as the “six sisters” (sugar, rice, fish, timber, gold and bauxite) are becoming weary.
“The economy has often been dragged along by any combination of those and many of them have experienced difficulties over the years…these need a rest and we need to provide the inputs to retool them,” said the finance minister.
He said there is no doubt that significant activities have been taking place leading up to first-oil in 2020.

“We are happy with the situation and the population can look forward to a growing economy and ever increasing benefits,” said Minister Jordan.

EDUCATION
Among those benefits could quite possibly be free education from the nursery to the tertiary level. The minister said it is important for education access to be available to everyone and he believes that so far, government has the means and should be able to give access, both in terms of quality education and empowering people.

Government would look to empower people in the sense that they should not be worried about transportation costs, meals and other expenses.

“To make it free and meaningful we have to look at those aspects and how to increase the income of poor and vulnerable people,” said Minister Jordan.

One of the possible ways of increasing income is through conditional cash transfers, a topic which has been debated since talks of development of the oil and gas sector began.
Government, Jordan said, has not signed on to cash transfers, but they are not dissuaded from looking at conditional cash transfers through which they can disburse money for various reasons such as education and health.

He said government could also look at giving money to persons living with disabilities and even increase the pensions of senior citizens.
In addition, government will look at increasing the salaries and benefits of employees of the public sector.

“All of these are areas which we will look at, but all these things will not happen March next year… Elections are in five-year cycles…What we are trying to do, we have a Vision 2040 in the Green State Development Strategy that we want to flesh out and then put to the populace. Our vision for the next five years, what we intend to achieve in that next five years.

“We will not leave the populace with any impression that in the next five years Guyana will be the Dubai of the Caribbean, that will not happen in five years… but we will progressively move to a higher standard of living given the income expected,” said Minister Jordan.