–Minister Parag emphasises; says over $10B spent in the last three years to grant scholarships

IN an intense presentation, newly-appointed Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Sonia Parag, ruffled the feathers of Opposition Parliamentarians, as she reflected on how Guyanese from all walks of life are earning better wages and salaries, and accessing more scholarships under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government.

Despite the numerous interruptions and the loud heckling from the Opposition, Parag stood firm in her defence of the Ministry of Public Service’s allocation.

Parag disclosed that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has expended more than $10 billion on scholarships between 2020 and 2023, and in 2022, Guyana saw the highest expenditure, which is over $3.8 billion.

Minister Parag said that any citizen can get a scholarship, noting: “There was so much talk as well about the Indigenous communities being left behind; this government is the government with a track record of taking care of our First People, our Indigenous people in this country and scholarships are just one aspect of that.”

Giving a breakdown, the minister said in just three years, 639 government scholarships were granted to Region One residents, while a total of 698 was allocated for Region Seven. Regions Eight and Nine saw 515 and 526 persons being granted scholarships respectively.

Regarding Regions Two and Three, 1,956 and 3,385 scholarships were granted, respectively.

She further said: “We were able to grant 21,442 ordinary Guyanese scholarships…there was so much talk that the GOAL scholarship was overriding the University of Guyana. We have always placed emphasis on the University of Guyana as our national university. In addition to the budgetary allocation…Last year for the UG, the Ministry of Public Service under its public sector scholarship programme granted $918 million in scholarships.”

She also told the Opposition Members that the government understands the importance of human capital development, hence the allocation for the Public Service Ministry.

“Human Capital Development is akin to human resource development, which comes under the Ministry of Public Service and a lovely sum is always placed in there from 2020 to 2024 to accommodate that, as well as the Ministry of Education for children…” the minister said.

With massive allocations to wages and salaries, she said that the government has made Budget 2024 “people-centred.”

Highlighting the failed promise of significant salary increases by the previous coalition government, the minister said that under the PPP/C Government, public servants have seen across-the-board salary increases unlike under APNU+AFC.

She said: “This government has consistently given a salary increase across the board to all public servants, this year giving benefits to over 54,000 public servants across the board.”

“I’d like to put on record that the Ministry of Public Service has [strived] from 2020 to now, we have launched what is called [a] personnel workshop, which was abolished under the previous administration where personnel from different agencies would come together for two days and hash out how they can how they can solve bottlenecks in the public service to make it more efficient and professional,” Parag said.

In the training division, under the five years of the previous APNU+AFC government, only 4,931 public servants were trained. This figure has been surpassed by the Irfaan Ali-led administration.

“In the three years of the PPP administration, we have trained in the training division 4,997 public servants,” Parag boasted.