Government's economic policies have left Guyanese poorer -MP Fernandes

The National Budget debate opened this morning with Opposition Member of Parliament Juretha Fernandes hitting out at the Government over its economic policies, which she believes have left Guyanese poorer than before.

MP Fernandes said despite oil wealth flooding the treasury and a massive budget of $1.382 trillion, the county’s poverty rate has worsened to 48%.

“This is the stark reality of PPP governance – where spending over $3 trillion in oil revenues from 2020 to 2024 has left our people poorer than before. By the end of 2025, the PPP will have spent $4.7 trillion – over $22 million per household. Yet walk through any community in Guyana, speak to any family, and ask them: Are you $22 million better off? The answer echoes through every market, every street, every home – no. Instead, working families struggle harder than ever to survive in a country that paradoxically boasts the highest GDP per capita,” MP Fernandes told the House.

Accusing the administration of using the country’s financial resources to enrich a few, the Opposition MP said the high level of mismanagement taking place is a systematic betrayal of the Guyanese people.

She told the House that the salary increases offered to public servants are no match to the high inflation rate.

“According to the bureau of statistics, data from the urban consumer price index (CPI) shows that from 2019 to 2024 inflation went up by 20% and worst, from 2019 to 2024 food inflation went up by 44.8%. Inflation in food items does not affect the wealthy, it affects the working class and its detrimental to the working poor. With the inflation rate for food at 44.8% from 2019 to 2024 the current administration was proud to announce wages and salaries for the same period for just 35%,” MP Fernandes pointed.

Additionally, she said the government has failed to adjust the minimum wage.

Fernandes pointed out that between 2015 and 2019, the APNU+AFC Government increased wages and salaries by 77% when inflation only increased by 5.4%.

She said even as Guyanese continue to battle high food prices, and the majority may be struggling with their salaries, the government has been on a borrowing binge.

“From 2020 to 2025 the PPP added a debt burden of GYD$5.9 million to every household in Guyana. $5.9 million is not small amount to the struggling families who are barely surviving paycheck to paycheck. $5.9 million should have been used to take people from below the poverty line and providing them with a decent standard of living. But instead, the increasing debt is being used to further enrich the wealthy while and leaving the poor to help pay the bill,” she said.

MP Fernandes said while 57% of Guyana’s population cannot afford anything beyond the most basic essentials of life, the Government has decided to saddle them with $5.9 million debt per household.

Further, she said it was disingenuous for Government to compare the debt to GDP using non-oil GDP during the coalition administration to oil included GDP under the current administration.

From 2020 to 2024 – the non-oil economy of Guyana grew by 36% in total.

However, Fernandes said the stock of public debt grew by a staggering 253%, which represents a 7% growth in debt for every 1% growth in the economy.

She said the PPP increased the national debt by 18 times as much as the coalition government, spent $2.1 trillion more than the coalition did and has only delivered 17% more growth than the coalition delivered.