Management structure in place to guide spending of COVID-19 loans

Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony has said loans acquired by Guyana for its COVID-19 programmes would be spent wisely.

The Minister made the comment during Thursday’s COVID-19 update, one day after the World Bank announced that it had approved US$7.5 million for Guyana’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Project.

“There is a structure that we have to work with and we have a project management unit that is going to be working with the IDB team and the World Bank team to unlock the resources. These are standardised procedures that you have to go through, so we have the team already that is working on that.”

Further, Minister Anthony said he was pleased with the efforts of the local negotiating team.

“We are very happy that we have done this and perhaps in record time, because these institutions take a long time sometimes to go through all the different types of studies and paperwork that is necessary, but I think our local team, which comprise of persons from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance worked very diligently.”

Minister Anthony said US$7 million will be used to strengthen central and regional ICUs, to purchase new equipment, acquire ventilators and bed monitors, as well as other types of diagnostic equipment necessary for proper diagnosis. Money will also go towards development of better contact tracing methods.

The other US$500,000 will be available for the management of the project.

The loan is interest-free with a maturity of 40 years, including a grace period of 10 years.