Chronic information distortion by Opposition — Ashni Singh

After a week of spirited debates over the 2026 National Budget, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh has accused the opposition of “chronic and barefaced distortion.”

Dr Singh was the last contributor to the budget debate, a task that allowed him to analyse and respond to each presentation before him. Throughout his three-hour-long presentation on Friday night, the Finance Minister ripped into the contributions made by the Opposition Parliamentarians.

Of particular concern, he said, was the reliance on an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) document, which states that 58% of Guyanese are living in poverty. However, the Finance Minister said this figure is based on data collected between 2016 and 2018— when APNU was in government.

As he reminded citizens that the incumbent People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration returned to power in 2020, he also pointed out that the devastating COVID-19 pandemic peaked in 2021.

Since then, Dr Singh posited, efforts have been made to uplift citizens and empower them through increased employment, higher wages, expanded cash transfers, and major investments in housing, education, and health care. Reduced unemployment, he said, was a major stride; the government has boasted that more than 104,000 new jobs were created in five years.

But he believes the Opposition intentionally ignores this reality.

“This is a pattern of behaviour: selective interpretation, selective quotation, chronic and barefaced distortion.

“This is a pattern of behaviour, (it is) misleading the country,” Dr Singh lamented.

Earlier in the budget debate, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira also chided the opposition for misusing data and misleading citizens on the impact of government programmes.

“I’m not saying there’s no poverty, there is. There are gaps we have to close,” Teixeira said, but affirmed that the PPP/C government was improving the lives of citizens sustainably over the years.