APNU proposes extra $400 billion for salary hikes, pension increase & other cash payouts

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is proposing to spend an additional $400 billion in its first budget, should it be elected to office after the September 1, 2025 General and Regional Elections.

Party leader and Presidential candidate, Aubrey Norton, said the spending on personal and household incomes will amount to no more than 30% of the party’s national budget for its first term in office. That equates to about $400 billion, Norton said. This, therefore, means that APNU will present a $1.33 trillion budget.

Here’s how some of the $400 billion will be spent:

• $100 billion will be spent to raise salaries
• $40 billion to raise the income tax threshold to $400,000
• $53 billion to increase the old-age pension from $41,000 (current sum) to $100,000
• $9 billion for the student stipend programme for tertiary institutions
• $25 billion for the childcare allowance programme

These ventures amount to $227 billion. Other investments, Norton said, will be made to provide support to citizens.

This breakdown of the party’s intended spending was provided at its weekly press conference on Friday. This came after numerous criticisms were hurled at the party for what has been seen as an exorbitant increase in the spending bill.

Norton and other candidates, namely Juretha Fernandes and Ganesh Mahipaul, pushed back against those concerns.

In the first instance, Norton said Guyana expects increased oil revenues from new and forthcoming FPSOs (the oil platforms offshore).

He said too, “Oil productions will more than double over the next three years, adding another $4 to 5B to government revenues by 2027. Some of these funds will be prudently invested, through the Natural Resource Fund, to earn income on international stock markets.”

He also claimed that the APNU government will be saving more as it intends to stamp out corruption that costs the State purse hundreds of billions of dollars. In fact, Fernandes said about $200 billion could be saved, should the APNU coalition be able to root out corruption from public projects.

And how else will the APNU government earn besides depending on oil money? Well, Norton said a sustainable agricultural plan for each administrative region is in the works.

Earlier this year, General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, cautioned against the opposition’s lack of economic foresight and the feasibility of their lofty promises heading into the 2025 elections.

He noted that these new promises echoed the vague slogan used during the 2015 campaign: “The Good Life for Everyone.”

“It’s the same vague promise they made in 2015, and it’s no different this time,” he said, while questioning the opposition’s ability to craft a practical economic plan.

“They never, in a single way, talked about how the country will earn more, about the diversification of the economy, creating the incentives for investment that will expand job opportunities… none of that. Their philosophy is precisely what got us in the situation, in the 90s,” he said, reflecting on Guyana’s history as a bankrupt country, and one of the poorest in the western hemisphere.