Gov’t defends infrastructure focus, opposition pushes higher wage increases as 2025 budget debates open

Shaping up to be intense, the 2025 National Budget Debate got underway on Friday, exactly one week after Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh presented the $1.38 trillion spending plan.

Opposition Parliamentarian Juretha Fernandes opened the debate, raising concerns, particularly about the lack of adjustments to wages, pensions, and the minimum wage in light of the rising cost of living.

Her contribution was emphatic, though she opined that the trillion-dollar budget was not responsive enough to a rising cost of living.

Fernandes is from the Alliance For Change (AFC) party in the opposition and has the shadow responsibility for finance.

“This administration did not take inflation into account when increasing wages salaries and old age pension,” Fernandes contended.

She added, “No adjustment of minimum wage mentioned in the $1.3 trillion dollar budget.”

Throughout her 30-minute presentation, she addressed various budgetary measures and allocations and consistently advanced an argument that the government was not spending enough on poverty alleviation ventures and measures to empower people.

It was her comment about the government creating more menial jobs in the service industry through its support for new hotels that riled up Susan Rodrigues, the Minister within the Ministry of Housing and Water who started the debate for the government side.

Minister Rodrigues took umbrage at what she said was an apparent effort to disparage workers in this industry, a sector in which older members of her family worked and made an honest living.

In what was a clear division from the contribution of Fernandes, Rodrigues defended the budget, highlighting the government’s investments in infrastructure, social services, and various projects aimed at reducing poverty and improving quality of life.

Rodrigues began her robust presentation by declaring that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) is empowering people in all segments of society.

“This administration, the PPP/C government, has policies that will take care of people from the cradle to the grave,” Rodrigues said.

Rodrigues then spent her 30-minute presentation, with a five-minute extension, disaggregating the 2025 National Budget and explaining how the allocations and measures will support Guyanese.

“We are building infrastructure to open opportunities, to increase trade, to reduce travel time, to open new lands for housing (and) to build new water treatment plants.

“This is what people want, this is how you use the wealth,” she posited.

The minister noted that investments in big infrastructure projects aren’t the only focus of the government nor are those ventures solely focused on in the 2025 National Budget. She said there are key investments in social services and productive sectors, measures that help the government achieve an overall goal of poverty alleviation and empowering people.

She contrasted the government’s focus now to the litany of unfulfilled promises from the APNU+ AFC government in office from 2015 to 2020. And she questioned whether the government should instead focus on doing less.

“I want them to tell the people of this country who are listening which project you want us to cut. Which housing scheme should we not build? Should we give out 500 lots instead of 50,000?” Rodrigues asked.

Like the spirited presentations that opened the debate, the Parliamentarians will all share their views on the budget over the next few days as the debate runs for a week. Following the conclusion of the debate, the Parliamentarians will then scrutinise the fiscal plan in great detail, during the consideration of the estimates.