-reminds opposition of its dismal track record

THE Opposition’s failure to acknowledge their record of under investments while in office was the subject of much criticism by People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, who flayed them for their “inept” comments on Budget 2025.

The $1.38 trillion budget was presented last Friday and there has been a lot of commentary from the Opposition. Dr Jagdeo, during his weekly news conference on Thursday at Freedom House, dismissed and countered those critiques.

The general secretary spent a good amount of time dealing with the lofty promises being made by the Opposition, along with its misguided understanding of the technical document.

Starting off with the promises being rolled out by the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Dr Jagdeo said that the party is simply multiplying the government’s measures by three.

“We recognise [that] you can’t believe anything they say. Nothing! It’s because they said it before [and] they didn’t do it. They failed our children, our pensioners…” he said.

One of the recent promises by the PNCR/APNU is that there will be over $100,000 a month cash plus benefits for households and $100,000 “hard cash” once or twice a year for adults.

“So, if you take $1.2 million per year and you multiply 300,000 households, and that’s a small number, we have more… Do you know how much you’re coming up with per year to give out here? That’s nearly a trillion Guyana dollars,” he explained, noting that this figure is more than the country’s total revenue.
Dr Jagdeo said that this is consistent with their mentality, which is “share out what we don’t have.”

Sharing every cent out is what Dr Jagdeo says is the Opposition’s economic policy, with no priority given to infrastructure, health and other sectors.
“That’s definition of lunacy, not an economic strategy,” he said.

Tackling the constant excuse by the Opposition that it did not have oil revenue, Dr Jagdeo pointed out the high taxation under the coalition administration.

Notably, oil revenue only financed 37 per cent of this year’s budget, he said.

Jagdeo also noted that every cent of the oil revenue is accounted for as there are transparency mechanisms in place.

He stated: “They increase the taxes and started collecting $90 billion more per year than they were collecting in 2015.” He pointed out that this was contrary to their promise to lower taxes.

ELITIST GROUP

The general secretary, who also serves as Guyana’s Vice President highlighted the lack of investments during 2015-2020 owing to the then-government’s “short-sightedness.”

Responding to APNU+AFC, he said: “They didn’t have oil money, but that didn’t constrain them from increasing their own salaries by 50 per cent, as soon as they got into office… If you didn’t have oil money, how is it that you have a special medical treatment for ministers and their families paid for by the taxpayer?
If you didn’t have oil money, how come we bought the billions of dollars of new vehicles for people in that period? The budget for new vehicles grew by that. How come we started spending over $1 billion more for rental of buildings for ministers and everyone else?”

Despite these expenditures, Dr Jagdeo highlighted that the citizens faced a number of woes under the APNU+AFC administration such as the “Because We Care” cash grant being take from the children and value-added tax (VAT) being placed on electricity and water.

“It is not about how much money you have. It is about your orientation, their philosophy. This is an elitist group that work for themselves,” Dr Jagdeo said.

Under the PPP, the budget has increased to cater for the people under every sector. Major investments are being made in health, education and housing, with $175 billion, $143 billion and $112 billion earmarked respectively.

“That alone is $420 billion; just these three sectors…And [yet] they ask, where did the money go? It’s described in great detail where the money will go, to what projects they will go,” Dr. Jagdeo stated.

Slamming the Opposition for not working for the people, he said: “You know, they spent more money on building offices for ministers and upgrading administrative buildings than we are spending now in the period when we didn’t have oil money. Because their comfort mattered more than the schools or the hospitals.”

Further, he then sharply criticised their comments on the infrastructure sector.

“Tell us, across Guyana, you name the communities that you don’t want us to build the roads in. Because trust me, every single community wants their road done. Every person wants the road done in front of them and they don’t see this as a luxury. They see it as a necessity because they don’t want to walk around on a mud dam or anything like that,” he firmly stated.

The PPP’s fiscal plan is centred on the people, in every sector. Speaking on this, he said: “That is how we have been tackling poverty, in multi-faceted ways, equipping people with the tools and doing it in a non-discriminatory manner.”
Given the comments by the Opposition, which lacked research and highlighted how they cannot chart Guyana forward.

“They’re bad for the country, bad for policymaking, etc,” he said.