LEADER of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, has criticized the $230B budget for 2016 unveiled by Government on Friday, although he has offered not positive alternatives.Jagdeo uttered his criticisms minutes after Finance Minister Winston Jordan had, on Friday, presented the $230B Budget to the National Assembly under the theme “Stimulating Growth, Restoring Confidence: The Good Life Beckons.”
According to Jagdeo who, while being President had imposed salary increases on public servants and had refused to reduce the Value Added Tax from 16%, the measures announced by Minister Jordan will not stimulate growth, nor will they restore the public and private sectors’ confidence in the economy.
“There is a huge disconnect between this budget, its orientation, its stated objective and the policies, programmes and measures put in place,” he told reporters during a press conference held in the Public Buildings.
However, the Opposition Leader threw his support behind the Government’s decision to move ahead with the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) Modernization and Expansion Project, in addition to the construction of the Specialty Hospital and the major road networks that will come on stream this year.
Despite criticisms of the budget from the Opposition Leader, who once served as the President and Finance Minister of Guyana under the PPP/C Administration, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Greenidge told Guyana Chronicle that this year’s budget will lay the foundation for greater developmental projects to be unveiled by the APNU+AFC Administration in the future.