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For a few billions more
Editorial…
Kaieteur News- The PPPC Government is appealing to citizens to brace themselves, hold tight. Vice President Jagdeo stated that ‘Guyana is not awash with oil money’. Guyanese know two things from tough circumstances. First, they don’t have the kind of money that should be coming to them in this oil rich country. Second, they note how the government raids the national treasury as though it is some petty cash box to be accessed for anything that attracts its attention. Insatiable greediness fueling runaway corruption, or the demand of necessary circumstances that just cannot wait?
Since the PPPC Government has been in charge in the post 2020 era, national budgets have broken record after record. Each year has seen a whopper of a budget, and 2025 has continued the trend with a record-breaking $1.382T, 20.6% greater than the budget of 2024. Yet there is the amazing thing that just happened: the PPPC Government went smartly to parliament and used its one-seat majority to approve an additional $57.5B supplementary budget. To seek a 4.1% funding supplement over this year’s biggest budget may appear to be minute, but nothing could be farther from reality. Why is this amount needed so soon, a matter of slightly over three months, since the passing of the huge national budget? How is it that $57.5B is introduced in parliament so casually, passed so quickly, with the government moving on, as though this is routine?
Questions have been raised about the extent of planning that went into the preparation of this year’s budget. We at this paper believe that when sizable supplementary budgets become routine, it suggests that the careful planning expected in the minister’s final budget is more imagined than real. If it has been one year, with parliament being approached for supplementary billions, there may be some overlooking. If it has been one supplement only in a year, there could be some seeing with the government, particularly if it’s late in the year. The record does not allow this courtesy, and this is just going back to 2023 and 2024, each year seeing the presentation of a record budget.
In 2024, the PPPC Government went to parliament in August for an additional $40B, which was followed in November with an appeal for another $84.5B. In effect, the government gave itself a nice 10% bonus, on top of the record $1.146T 2024 budget. The budget had a theme of “Staying the course, building prosperity for all.” If there is something to be said, supplements did stay the course with two juicy ones approved. But the questions linger regarding that vision and theme about that “prosperity”, regarding where it is, and for whom? It would be helpful to get a peek into Dr. Ashni Singh’s head to find out his definition of “all”.
The budget in 2023 was $781.9B. But another $31B was sought by the government in July, plus $61B in August, and 25.9B in the later stages of December. A record budget in 2023, and still the government had to prop itself up with schemes that never see the light of the fullest transparency, sometimes only negligible. When the government gave itself another $117.9B in 2023, that was a slick 15% tacked on what was sold under the banner of “improving lives today, building prosperity for tomorrow.” The minister in charge of national budgets, Dr. Singh, should explain whose lives are improved when so many Guyanese are hungry, living with the fear over the source of their next meal. On the prosperity scoreboard, that has been a steady theme in national budgets. A significant fraction of Guyanese has all but given up on the PPPC Government’s promised prosperity, dismissing it as a mirage at best, and a cheap sales trick at worst.
The unique context of the 2025 budget is that this is an election year. And within days of announcing an election date, the government was in full hustle mode to sneak that $57.5B under the gate before parliament is dissolved. There is more than the suspicion that Guyanese are seeing. The whole atmosphere surrounding this $57.5B supplementary budget reeks of the sinister. It’s one more trick, which this government has become so proficient at performing.
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