By Svetlana Marshall
In a fiery contribution to the National Budget Debates this morning, Opposition Member of Parliament, Juretha Fernandes accused the Government of doing a poor job at handling of the economy, and on the issues of indebtedness, poverty, and the perceived disregard for the working class.
Telling the Assembly that Governments are nothing without public servants, MP Fernandes said the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has done little to improve the salaries of public servants despite raking in billions of dollars in oil revenues.
“Between the years 2015 to 2019 with $1.2 trillion, the APNU+AFC administration increased the wages and salaries of public servants by 77%, without oil revenue. When this budget period comes to an end the PPP would have spent $3.25 trillion and to date, they have only increased public servants’ wages and salaries by 23%. With $900 billion in 2023, the PPP increased public servants’ wages and salaries by a measly 6.5%,” MP Fernandes reasoned.
She said the “measly” 6.5% increase in wages and salaries imposed on public servants, is of no significant benefit to the ordinary worker, who continue to struggle to make ends meet with the rising cost of basic food items in the market.
The APNU+AFC Member of Parliament said to compound the situation, the Government has landed the country in even more debts, putting forward a budget with a deficit of $395B.
It was pointed out that when the PPP/C took office in 2020, there was a total external debt ceiling of $400B, however, the Government has since raised the ceiling to allow for more borrowing.
MP Fernandes said in the long term, Guyanese would have to carry the burden of those debts.
“In this single one-year budget the PPP will be adding a debt burden of $1.8 million per every Guyanese household. To break it down further, they will be adding a debt burden of more than half a million dollars on every Guyanese. So, in an oil rich economy, instead of creating a pathway to sustainable prosperity for Guyanese, the PPP has decided to shackle every man, woman and child with a debt burden, and there seems to be no light at the end of this tunnel,” she argued.
Further, she accused the Administration of being dishonest about the country’s overdraft, and more particularly, the overdraft that was inherited. According to her, the Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, in presenting the Budget, disingenuously stated that the increase in the domestic debt was as a result of an overdraft that the Government inherited from the APNU+AFC coalition.
MP Fernandes argued that the APNU+AFC coalition had an accumulated overdraft of $78.7B over 5 years, and it was the PPP/C Government that racked up an overdraft of $47.9B in its first five months in office. She said in nine months, the PPP/C Government was responsible for an overdraft of $121.3B.
MP Fernandes also presented the House with a comparative analysis of the sectoral performance of six sectors – sugar, timber, shrimp, bauxite, rice and gold – under the Coalition Government verses the current Administration, using the years, 2019 and 2023.
“It was reported that the sugar growing sector is estimated to have grown by 28% in 2023. Sounds good right? In 2019 the foreign earnings from sugar was US$27.7 million while in 2023 the foreign earning from sugar was US$24.9 million. US$2.8 million less was received in 2023 under the PPP than in 2019 under the APNU+AFC coalition. The forestry sector is reported to have expanded by 5.4 percent in 2023. Yet in 2023 the foreign earnings from timber was US$20.5 million compared to US$33.7 million in 2019. The PPP administration managed to decrease the foreign earnings for timber by US$13.9 million from 2019 to 2023,” she reasoned.
Similarly, MP Fernandes said shrimp production was reported to have expanded by 61.1% in 2023, bringing in US$61.7M in foreign earnings, however, in 2019 shrimp production resulted in US$76.3M in foreign earnings.
She told the House, the Bauxite, Rice, and Gold also contracted in 2023 when compared to 2019.
“It was reported that the bauxite mining industry has contracted by 20.4% in 2023. In 2023 the bauxite mining industry’s foreign earning was US$79.6 million, but when compared to the 2019 foreign earnings of US$127.1 million you would see that the sector declined by US$47.5 million under the PPP. During the budget presentation we learned that the rice sector expanded by 8.3%. Let us examine the foreign earnings from rice; in 2023 the foreign earnings from rice was US$211.7 million while in 2019 the foreign earnings from rice was US$222.9 million. The foreign earning from rice in 2023 was US$11.2 million less than it was in 2019 under the APNU+AFC coalition,” she pointed out.
The gold mining industry contracted by 11.2% in 2023 resulting in the foreign earnings from gold being US$808.6M. In 2019 the foreign earnings from gold was US$876.6M.
MP Fernandes said those six sectors under the APNU+AFC administration in 2019 brought in US$158M or GYD$32.9B more than the PPP/C did in 2023.
According to her, it is clear from the figures that the PPP/C Government is mismanaging the sectors with heavy focus now being placed on oil. The country, she said, appears to now be racing in the direction of the Dutch disease.
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