The installed People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime continues to borrow large amounts of money from international lending agencies. In January, the government had claimed that the practice would stop with the PPP’s access to the Natural Resource Fund (NRF).
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has announced that the PPP regime has requested huge sums of more than US$244 million in various loans. That translates to about 50 billion Guyana dollars. The IDB says that it is considering the request. The IDB has revealed that the documents for the large loan requests state that the PPP intends to use the money to fund a variety of projects including roads, and electricity supply. This application for loans does not apply only to the IDB, the PPP may have approached other lending agencies for money.
As 2022 began the PPP had announced that it intends to access funds from the NRF. At that time the NRF contained some US$607 million. The installed Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had said, “The fiscal deficit this year, in this budget, would be lower than the fiscal deficit in last year. From a financing perspective, that means we’d have to borrow less as a result of the Oil and Gas revenue [in the NRF] will go to replace the high level of borrowing that we have had.”
The PPP had used that excuse to ram the Natural Resource Fund Bill through the National Assembly despite strong protest actions by the Parliamentary Opposition. After a contentious Sitting, the Speaker of the National Assembly had announced that the Bill had passed. President Irfaan Ali immediately assented, thereby passing the Bill into law. The new law gives the PPP access to all of Guyana’s Oil money. As it stands, the Opposition maintains the position that the Bill was not properly passed and is therefore illegitimate.
Considering the fact that the PPP regime now has access to all of Guyana’s revenues, and given that the PPP had said that huge sums of money will not be borrowed, Guyanese are left to wonder why is the government still requesting such huge loans. Citizens are also left to wonder where all the money is going from taxpayers and the Oil and Gas industry.
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