With the national budget set to be presented as early as the end of this month, President Irfaan Ali has been explaining the direction in which his government is moving, and the investments that are being made in various sectors.

In a 22-minute Facebook livestream on Thursday night from State House, the President followed his Vice President in taking aim at recent editorials in the independent newspapers, which raised concern about some of the decisions of his administration.

While the President acknowledged that there is more to be done, he said he believes the editorials have deliberately ignored the positive impact that the government’s policies hold for the people of Guyana, especially in relation to wealth creation.

“When we talk about growing wealth, all the initiatives we are implementing to bring more opportunities to the people of our country, and that is what our policy formulation is about—creating an enabling environment so we can bring more opportunities to the people of our country,” the President noted.

The President said more young people are now benefitting from jobs in the oil and gas sector because of a direct policy intervention from the government. This he said should not be ignored. He spoke of the removal and reversal of Value Added Tax, (VAT) and other taxes on some items, the return of the Because We Care School Grant, the Infrastructural Development taking place across the country and salary increases granted to public servants since taking office.

“Growing wealth and creating wealth is about policies that help to create the opportunities, it is about building a supportive system. And yes, there is still a lot of work in progress that we will talk about like access to capital, these are things that we have to address as the model moves forward. We are addressing it now, but as we grow in scale, as a build capacity, we are going to grow in scale and as we grow in scale in what we can do as a country then more and more, we will have to have innovate ways to have access to capital,” the President said.

While indirectly responding to calls for higher salary increases for Public Servants, the President said the government has to spend in a way that could be sustained in the long term, but promised that other initiatives will be put in place to ease the burden faced by Guyanese.

“When we invest in all these farms to market road and all these highways, what are we doing? We are opening up new lands, to do what? To give people to increase their net value,” the President noted.

He said work is moving ahead on this year’s budget, which will unveil a menu of measures that will have a direct impact on citizens.

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