Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo has blasted the APNU+AFC government for having what he said was a lazy economic policy where it is sitting back and waiting on money that it is hoping to get from oil in a couple of years.
At a press conference hosted by his office at Freedom House on Thursday, Jagdeo said he was disappointed with the economic strategy of the government which he said lives in an ivory tower or a cocoon and is delusional.
He said the government is not making efforts to get foreign investment, noting that “this is not how to change the economy. The country is hurting, the business community is hurting and poor people are losing their jobs.”
Jagdeo added: “Go to the construction sites or many of the business places that can’t meet payroll and find out how many people are being laid off.”
He said this is “not just happening in the rice or sugar belt, but right across the country – in retail trade, in the mining area, in forestry.”
He said he was mentioning it “to wake up the government to action, that they would do something because they have the resources…”
He said government had also promised that there would be 100 to 150 jobs available onshore and that thousands of people would get jobs when they start pumping the oil.
“ExxonMobil has made it very clear that the jobs they have now they have already hired people for them and it is highly unlikely that they were going to hire many more. The government also said that full production would be around 2020 if everything goes well,” Jagdeo told the press conference.
Besides, he said, when the revenue comes in, a significant part will have to go to the sovereign wealth fund.
He noted that the reported plan by Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin to add another layer of bureaucracy to do due diligence on investors is another hurdle to business. He also questioned whether the minister has defined the parameters of the due diligence.
Jagdeo argued that government had not done due diligence on the “man that government brought back” to head the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) board as well as another man to head the Guyana Water Inc., who had been convicted twice in the US for drug dealing. In relation to GPH, Jagdeo was referring to former Health Minister Dr Noel Blackman who was arrested this year in New York en route to Guyana. Dr Blackman has since pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and is to be sentenced next year.
