Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo described budget proposals from the APNU+ AFC opposition as contradictory, confusing, and without any vision for development.
In scathing remarks, the Vice President rubbished some of the statements made by Opposition Parliamentarians during the recently concluded Budget Debates.
According to him, the promises made were lofty and demonstrated that those in the political opposition may not have a clear understanding of how an economy and a country’s finances should be managed.
“What bothers me a lot is that the presentation from the Leader of the Opposition himself epitomises the contradictions and confusions we saw from the members of Parliament.
“… (Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton) argued that we were using too much oil money. This is a primary contention of his presentation, that we need to save more because we can’t be certain about future oil prices.
“Then he proceeded to lay out a plan that would double spending from oil resources, and not just double spending from oil resources in a sustainable manner, but double it only for recurrent expenditures, not capital expenditures,” Jagdeo said at his weekly press conference at Freedom House, Georgetown.
Further, the Vice President pointed out that the opposition promised to substantially increase the income tax threshold, far beyond the $130,000 figure currently in place. He said such promises, without a clear explanation of how the move would be sustained, are troublesome.
Then Jagdeo addressed the promise of hiking wages and salaries in the public sector by 35%, a promise he said would cost about $517 billion- a sum more than the $512 billion of oil revenues that will be used to help fund budget 2025.
So he lamented, “That’s not an alternate budget, that’s just a party trying to do more than the PPP… Any fool, a clown, a donkey can come and say ‘I’ll do 10 times more’.”
Jagdeo believes the seemingly ad hoc promises indicate that the opposition does not have a cohesive vision for development. And he called on persons to scrutinise these promises more.
The $1.38 trillion National Budget was passed hours before Jagdeo’s press conference. The passage of the budget came after a week of budget debates and four days for the consideration of the budget estimates.
