House approves $40B more for Govt. spending

Aug 10, 2024 News

Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance and the Public Service, Dr. Ashni Singh

Kaieteur News – The National Assembly on Friday evening approved an additional $40B spending for the government, following a nine-hour long debate in the House.

Consideration of Financial Paper One, for Current Estimates, totaling $8,566,812,000 commenced shortly after 11:00 hrs. with Prime Minister, Mark Phillips and Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha facing questions on respective allocations for power generation and operational costs to support the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).

Meanwhile, Financial Paper Two for Capital estimates totaling $32,182,604,021 was debated in the House from 13:15hrs until 20:30hrs when the House approved the sum.

After copping the largest portion of this year’s $1.146 trillion Budget, the Ministry of Public Works was granted $7.5B more for road projects, sea defences, stellings and reconditioning of ferry vessels.

The sum of $1.6 Billion in supplementary funding was approved for Sea and River Defence works, $297.4 Million for the support of operations of the Transport and Harbours Department, $159.2 Million towards completion of the Bartica Stelling and $680.5 Million to pave the way for crucial upgrades to Ferry Vessels.

Further, another sum of $904.8 Million for the construction and rehabilitation of hinterland roads and $600 Million for the completion of infrastructure for the critical supply of water to hinterland communities were also approved by the National Assembly.

The National Assembly also deliberated on the supplementary provision of $77.5M for the Ministry of Labour to make outstanding payments to the Board of Industrial Training. Another $16B was approved for the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) and another $1.1 Billion to support the electricity companies in Linden, Lethem, Mabaruma and Matthew’s Ridge.

The agriculture sector was also given a boost of $10.8B with GuySuCo alone to receive $9.5B. The National Assembly also approved $2.3 Billion to settle outstanding payments owed to a number of suppliers of goods and services to various Government agencies for several years.

The Ministry of Finance in a statement said the additional funding will assist in its “Continued robust economic expansion in key sectors to move ahead.”

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