“Political situation” could stall int’l aid to Guyana

“Political situation” could stall int’l aid to Guyana – Moses Nagamootoo

Apr 24, 2020 News

Prime Minister and Head of the National COVID-19 Task Force, Moses Nagamootoo, is of the viw that Guyana may not be able to source as much international funding as it needs to aid the fight against COVID-19 outbreak. This is due to the incompletion of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections process.

Head of the National COVID-19 Task Force, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo

It has been more than 50 days since Guyanese went to the polls to cast their vote for the elections and a legitimate government is yet to be sworn into office.
That step is left stalled due to the controversy over the declaration of results for Region Four.
Weeks later, Guyana began battling with the novel Coronavirus since the first confirmed case emerged in early March. Since that instance, the Government has applied for aid from several international lending institutions; most notably, a US$5M loan from the World Bank to which Guyana has not received any response.
To this, the Prime Minister, during a virtual media conference, pointed out that Guyana’s current “political situation” may be putting a block on receiving the funds.
Responding to questions on whether Guyana has received any word on funding, the head of the Task Force relayed that a few requests are still being processed.
Nagamootoo further stated “I believe that also, because of the political situation, in Guyana while we are in transition to a government that emerged after March 2, 2020, that we cannot say for sure whether some of these international, multilateral lending agencies are going to be dealing with Guyana’s applications any time soon.”
He opined that “they probably would want to sit it out and wait until the President is sworn in.”
Nagamootoo noted too that the government will now redirect funds from other projects to aid in the COVID-19 fight.
“We have an ongoing relationship with the Inter-American Development Bank with regards to several projects that would be reconfigured to COVID related projects…I’m told that this would be just under US$80M.”
Added to that, the Prime Minister pointed out that government will also tap into funding from the International Funds for Agriculture Development (IFAD), that is, the US$14M grant offered by the Indian Government to Caribbean nations and others to assist in Agriculture production.
“We are told that there is monies available from other international agencies that could be tapped for example IFAD, in the agricultural sector, livestock sector, could be converted for short term use,” he added.