The House of Assembly has approved the 2024 Budget Estimates after much debate and thorough scrutiny at the Committee of Supply. A historic $1.146 trillion was approved which, according to Senior Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh will allow for accelerated people-centered development.

In a number of significant ways, this budget can be seen as a strategic advance over previous budgets by removing some of the bottlenecks which stood in the way of accelerated growth and development. Take for example the Fiscal Amendment Bill which has as its main objective the amending of the NRF Act of 2021 to facilitate the country’s oil revenues for the development of public infrastructure and social services. The idea behind the fiscal amendment bill, according to Dr. Singh, is to optimize the financing mix to ensure a better balance between immediate withdrawals and longer-term savings from the Natural Resources Fund.

One would have thought that a piece of amended legislation aimed at promoting the national good would have gained the unanimous support of the House. That unfortunately was not the case as the main political opposition saw it fit to walk out of the House just prior to the consideration of the Fiscal Enactments Bill. This inability or refusal to see the bigger picture has now become characteristic of the political opposition which seemingly is running out of ideas on the way forward for the country and its people. It has resorted to ‘opposing’ in an attempt to frustrate the national developmental efforts of the PPP/C administration and to appear ‘relevant’ to some from among its political base.

This bill allows for the mobilization of financial resources to accelerate the modernization process currently underway which will bring benefits to all Guyanese by way of the delivery of enhanced social services.

The fact is that given the current state of the country’s finances, it is just not practical or prudent to have our oil revenues sitting ‘idly’ in the NRF especially at a time when the country’s modernization process requires significant inflows of finance capital. The cost of borrowing money is not insignificant and it therefore makes sense to utilize our own resources to the full extent possible to avoid unnecessary debt and interest repayments later down the road.

Of course, we do not want to go back to the days when the debt burden was a windmill around the necks of the Guyanese people, eating up nearly all of our revenues as was the case under the previous PNC administration. The difference between those days and today was that under the previous administration there was little to show for the borrowed money, unlike today when developments, in particular infrastructural works are now a dominant feature in the physical and social landscape of the country.

Guyana is on a development trajectory that will lift, as it were, all boats. This economic dynamism must not be allowed to go off-track by those who are seemingly lacking in perspective or vision as unfortunately appear to be the case with the political opposition.