Highlighting “massive” increases in funding for food, rent and travel, among other “non-essential” areas in the 2019 Budget, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has accused the government of paying less attention to more critical areas such as health.
Dietary, local travel and subsistence, and goods and services are among ten “non-essential and non-productive” areas accounting for $13.5 billion in the national budget which have seen “massive” funding for these in 2019 compared to the 2014 budget passed by the PPP/C government, Jagdeo said. Speaking at his weekly press conference at his Queenstown office on Thursday, the former President said the budget continues the trend “to massively increase massive recurrent expenditure” with very little increase on capital expenditure, particularly essential services like health and public security.
While Finance Minister Winston Jordan boasted about the 2019 Budget being the largest ever, Jagdeo said, “When you examine it, you will see it is mainly the recurring side of the budget.”
