Guyana’s Vice President – Oil revenues to be utilised for capital investments in major sectors

The current administration will utilise revenue from the burgeoning oil and gas sector for capital investments in education, healthcare, infrastructure and other transformational projects, according to Guyana’s Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo.

Dr. Jagdeo was speaking at the Albion Community Centre, Region Six, where some 268 contracts were signed to the tune of $6.8B GUY for road works across the region The Vice President pointed out that the APNU+AFC’s anti-development policies and lack of transformative initiatives resulted in economic hardships during its tenure.

However, he disclosed that the present Government reversed many of these measures and will continue to invest to improve the livelihood of all Guyanese. Jagdeo pointed out that, “Capital works means building for the future. It allows new industries to be developed. It allows the citizens to have greater access to better services, but that was not the objective [of APNU+AFC].”

He continued, “So we made it clear that any oil money has to go towards capital expansion, roads, hospitals, schools, sea defences, eating industry, so we can diversify the economy and produce new jobs in the future. That is quite clear.” 

The VP said that while the government, since assuming office, was challenged by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and other external factors, a proactive approach is being taken to buffer the effects of the increased cost of living.

“We now have massive plans that we promised, we didn’t drop the plans because of COVID. We promised to cut electricity price by 50% in the five years. We are now moving forward with a power plant to do that… that would have stable electricity for the whole country at half the price. We then have enough power to put every street light that you want,” he noted.

VP Jagdeo highlighted that the government has ensured the operationalisation of the Natural Resources Fund (NRF) to ensure the prudent and transparent utilisation of the oil funds.

As such, the fund, unlike under the previous government, is now being managed by an independent board.

“The Finance Minister does manage it. We put in place a board of directors to manage the fund. And the private sector has one representative on the board and the parliament has submitted a representative on the board. The opposition has a nominee now on the Oversight Committee to see that the money is spent properly,” Dr. Jagdeo said.  

The former President said that reference was made to the part-time jobs initiative which is supplementing household income.

“So job creation was one of the things we campaigned on and that is why we’ve seen an upsurge in jobs now, since the last two years inspite of the COVID. Many countries have lost jobs, but we’ve had an upsurge and now we’ve had nearly 11,000 people working as part-time workers,” the VP Jagdeo noted.

It was revealed that in the region alone some 4, 000 persons have been employed through the programme. Further, the return and increase of the ‘Because We Care’ education grant, when combined with the school uniform and supplies grant, sees each child in the public and private schools receiving $30,000.

“So that’s a transfer of $6.2B GUY into the pockets of the children and their families. That was not there before. People sometimes don’t realise how much that costs. And when you look at public assistance, and public assistance and pension, every $1,000 increase in public assistance and pension is close to a billion US dollars. So we increased the old age pension by 40%. That’s about $1,000 and we said we’ll double it by the end of the term, but that really is equivalent to nearly $8B GUY,”Dr. Jagdeo said.

The VP stressed that the government remains committed to its promises. He also addressed a number of concerns raised by the residents. VP Jagdeo was accompanied by Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh, Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, Public Works Minister, Bishop Juan Edghill, Local Government and Regional Development Minister, Nigel Dharamlall, Junior Public Works Minister, Deodat Indar, Public Affairs Minister, Kwame McCoy, and other regional officials.