Spending on the water sector this year alone is double what the former APNU/AFC Coalition spent for their entire term, General Secretary of the ruling PPP, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday.
Total allocations in the water sector from 2015 to 2020, that is, the years of Coalition governance, amounted to $10.8 billion. Comparatively, Jagdeo said the PPP/C government allocated $21 billion in the sector in 2024 alone.
Pushing back against comments that the PPP/C government can increase its spending because of the inflows of oil revenues, Jagdeo reminded reporters that only about 30 per cent of the 2024 National Budget is funded by oil money.
He, however, posited that the PPP/C is better at managing the economy.
Jagdeo, who also serves as the country’s Vice President, said thousands of people are benefitting from the investments now.
He noted that capital expenditures for the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) increased massively since the party has been back in government.
“So, in one year, we are investing in GWI, twice as much as APNU invested…,” Jagdeo said at his weekly press conference.
Further disaggregating the expenditures, he pointed out that $2.1 billion was invested by the coalition government to improve the water supply on the coast. This year, he said, spending on improving the coastal water supply is more than $14 billion.
Similar increased investments were made to improve water supply in the hinterland.
The huge allocations in the water sector are for the construction of new water plants (14 new ones will be constructed, with 12 contracts already awarded), Jagdeo said. And he noted that an additional 181,000 people will benefit from treated water in Guyana.
Other water plants are being rehabilitated while iron removal plants are being constructed in several villages across the coast, so more people will get a better quality of water.
And Jagdeo said similar spending is occurring across all infrastructure sectors to the benefit of citizens.
