The Guyanese economy is quite diversified, with agriculture, mining, forestry, fishing, and manufacturing usually having significant roles. The country also used to be a major producer of sugar and bauxite, and it has significant reserves of gold and diamond. However, based on the Government’s midyear financial report all major sectors are in decline, with it nascent Oil and Gas sector accounting for the economy’s positive outlook.
Last week the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government returned to the National Assembly for its third budget for 2022, its second supplemental budget. Parliamentary Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) Ganesh says it’s legalized thievery. MP Mahipaul told Credible Sources, “The People’s Progressive Party, they are using the National Assembly as that body or as that institution to legalize their public thievery. And all we are having from these supplementary requests for additional sums of money is to basically legalize their thievery.”
He said, “When you look at that supplementary requests, you are seeing that there is nothing for the ordinary Guyanese, there is absolutely nothing to lift their living standards. There is nothing for the hard-working tax-paying public servants. They still have to contend with this 8% slap in the face that will be taxed.” Mahipaul, who is also a member of the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, stated “The 8% is a shame, it’s an insult when you look at what the ordinary, hardworking taxpayers will have to get versus what people like the President, like the Prime Minister, like the ministers, what they will have to take home versus what the ordinary, hardworking Guyanese will have to take home.”
The MP noted that if monies had gone to public servants, he would have been able to say “very good” but contends that there’s nothing in that 44.7 billion Supplementary Budget for the ordinary citizens. “You see that they have monies there for roads and so on, but I ask the same questions they ask before, can the people eat the road? Can the people eat the road or can they eat the drains? Lift our people out of the nightmare that they’re in and make our people more comfortable in this oil-rich Guyana.” MP Mahipaul contends the funds are instead going to “friends, families, and favorites”.
