As Guyana continues to earn millions of US dollars from oil production and the money remains stashed and untouched in an account, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo today said the resources from the oil sector will be used to expand economic opportunities.
During a media conference, Mr. Jagdeo said one of the plans of the government is to get more people working and therefore more resources will be channeled towards job creation across the various sectors.
He said resources will also be pushed towards the quality of education that will be offered to Guyanese.
“Although we have not touched the oil resources as yet, we have already started funding targeted subsidies…we want in the first round to utilize a lot of this money for infrastructure improvement and we have to spend a ton of the oil money in Georgetown too on infrastructure and drains and preventing flooding, and having good roads and modernizing the city, putting in parks and all of that”, Vice President Jagdeo said.
He said with the major planned works that will be undertaken in Georgetown and other towns, more employment will be generated and that in turn will improve the living standard.
On the issue of direct cash transfers to citizens, the Vice President said there is not enough money to be doing that, noting that there are over 300,000 households in Guyana, but he noted that “the curve will grow steeply as you get to 2024 and 2025 because that is when more resources will come in, but right now we have to look at jobs and infrastructure, and healthcare and education and keeping people safe in their homes and housing. At some point in time, there may be cash transfers but to targeted groups and not generalised cash transfers”.
The Vice President said the Government will continue to support improving the grants to school children and the old-age pension and persons will see significant increases in both when the next budget is presented and those increases will be done without the oil money.
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