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‘Budget short on investment in people’ – Cathy Hughes
Kaieteur News- Although applauding some of the measures in government’s $1.3trillion budget Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), Cathy Hughes said the financial plan is heavy on infrastructure and short on investments in the people of the country.
Opposition Member of Parliament (MP), Cathy Hughes
Hughes made these remarks during her contributions to the budget debates on Thursday at the National Assembly being held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. “We are a mature nation, and I applaud some of the principles of the measures in budget 2025. Any programme that attempts to share more of the people’s wealth with the citizenry I support but as we are now making GY$65 million an hour from our oil and gas industry, much of the measures to ease the cost of living are absent from this budget,” Hughes stated.
Highlighting that budget 2025 may be building all the “fancy” bridges and roads, she expressed however that it is not putting “more monies in the pockets where it is needed more.” “Where is the people-centered approach? Where is the balance between infrastructure and the ever-increasing high cost of living? We have a responsibility to carry as many of our people as it is possible to a better life,” the MP related. “Everyone in this House knows this, and hundreds of thousands of families feel it every day. It is against this background that I say…. $ 1.382 trillion yes is the largest budget ever but this budget highlights that largest isn’t always best,” she expressed.
Elaborating on this, the MP told the National Assembly, with the national discussions estimating that the minimum wage should be between $100,000 and $150,000 a pension of $41,000 “just does not cut it.” The MP continued, “…the cries from persons in our communities who have been struck off the public assistance list is of concern. Worse yet, that in this Dubai-rich economy we have only allocated a $3000 increase. And what does $3000 do?”
According to Hughes, the increases in the income tax threshold, adjustments on personal income tax and the modest reduction in the VAT rate are great but all have little impact on the lowest of income earners in Guyana and that it reinforces the expansion of those that have.
(‘Budget short on investment in people’ – Cathy Hughes)
- budget Opposition Member of Parliament, Cathy Hughes, cost-of-living, oil and gas industry, people’s wealth
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