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Junior Minister of Public Works and former President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Deodat Indar has responded to the criticisms of former Finance Minister, Winston Jordan on the People’s Progressive Party’s (PPPs) $329.5B Emergency Budget which he labelled as a “reward budget” for the private sector.
In statement on Saturday night, the Junior Minister said that the former Minister should be the last to speak on the PPP’s budget as he is responsible for gross mismanagement of Guyana’s finances which rendered Guyanese poorer.
On a programme hosted by the APNU+AFC on Wednesday, the former Finance Minister had stamped the PPP’s budget as unoriginal, visionless, non-transparent, and merely a “payback” to the business community.
He said that there is no long-term structure which guides the budget and it seems to be geared towards ensuring the rich will get richer while the vulnerable are set up to have unequal access to development.
However, Indar, a member of the private sector, did not take Jordan’s assessment lightly. He responded to Jordan’s comments as recorded in an article by the Stabroek News titled “Private sector’ has eroded revenue base, pumped up deficit”.
“Mr. Jordan is the last person who should comment on this budget, as his leadership at the Ministry of Finance wreaked havoc on the economy, and bankrupted Guyana. His misguided philosophical approach is one which not only stifled the average consumer in Guyana but was onerous and burdensome on the private sector. No incentives were given for production and the promotion of productivity. To compensate for this, unleashed on taxpayers was a regime of abrasive and wide-reaching taxation; unprecedented in its nature in the Caribbean,” he stated.
Minister Indar referred to Jordan’s assessment as “outlandish” and to the former Finance Minister as the worse to have ever stepped foot in the office. Pointing out some the errors he believes were made by the APNU+AFC, Indar stated that, in 2014, tax revenue totaled $135.2B but, within a mere five years, the APNU+AFC government’s tax revenues sky-rocketed by $91B or, a 67 percent increase from 2014. He said that this increase came directly from the pockets of Guyanese.
Furthermore, Indar said that the past administration engaged in “unauthorized and illegal spending” of more than half of the budget from January 1, 2020 to August 2, 2020 as there was no Parliament since December 2018. A substantial portion of this budget, he noted, had to cater for ‘rollover’ projects from 2019, undertaken by the APNU+AFC during its interim status.
“What they did with this money is Mr. Jordan’s legacy to answer to the Guyanese people,” the Minister said.
He also pointed to a bloating of the public sector which drove up operational costs to “astronomical levels” with no corresponding increase in work output; the questionable transfer of lands; questionable monies spent on capital works; the $300M fraud linked to GUYOIL and the withholding of information on the US$18M signing bonus with ExxonMobil.
Indar stated: “This Emergency Budget is a step in the right direction to rectify the wrong-doings and malpractices of Mr. Jordan and the Granger administration and seeks to usher in a new era of economic boom through our plan for prosperity… with the approach laid out by Dr. Ali’s administration, citizens of all walks of life can be assured that his policies and commitment will result in prosperity. President Ali has committed to ensuring that his plan for prosperity, despite the challenges, will ensure that standard of living for every citizen is lifted. Guyanese can look forward to an inclusionary and participatory agenda in the medium-term, leaving behind the dark days of Mr. Jordan and the APNU’s oppressive economic policies.”
