According to Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat, the 2020 budget is a boon for the sectors under his portfolio.
During his presentation yesterday on day two of the 2020 budget debate, Bharrat stressed that measures such as the removal of value added tax on hinterland travel and the reversal of duties on machinery and equipment will positively impact the logging and mining sectors.
His government, he stressed, has budgeted $1.5 billion for the construction and rehabilitation of hinterland roads, which will not just revitalise the natural resources sector but also be an invaluable benefit for indigenous communities.
Additionally, there is a plan to amend the log export policy to allow saw millers to export products.
He lamented that even though Guyana has seen record highs in gold production, the Guyana Gold Board had a $4 billion overdraft at the beginning of August while Iwokrama was bankrupt and existing on a government subsidy.
According to Bharrat, this bankruptcy was a result of a failure by the coalition government to properly constitute the Board which was therefore unable to access donor funding.
Speaking about the petroleum sector, Bharrat noted that it can be a blessing or a curse based on management.
He went on to criticize the former coalition government’s management of the sector, while stressing that after “five years in office” it had failed to put in place a proper financial architecture to manage the sector and its proceeds.
The minister explained that the Petroleum Commission Bill will be retabled with a reduced role for the Minister and upon its passage the Department of Energy will be subsumed into the Commission to remove it from political control.
Also promised is a robust local content policy different from the coalition’s, which he claimed benefitted the oil companies more than Guyanese.
Bharrat, who spoke after former Minister of Telecommunications Catherine Hughes, dismissed her contributions as mere storytelling and a collection of wild assertions.
Hughes, like her colleague Raphael Trotman on Monday, criticized the budget for failing to comprehensively address pervading racial tensions and COVID-19.
“Social Cohesion has been tossed on the dumpster with no replacement at a time when we have become so barbaric we beat, break and brand an X on the mutilated bodies of our teenagers,” she stressed before calling out the Ethnic Relations Commission for failing Guyana and Guyanese.
The former minister also noted that COVID-19 has been acknowledged in the budget but stated that there is no clear explanation of the infrastructure needed or which will be used to mitigate the pandemic.
She called out the PPP/C for refusing to participate in the COVID-19 response while in opposition and stressed that the efforts of her ministry has made it possible for E-learning to be utilised in response to physical distancing requirements.
“A solid digital infrastructure is in place, which must be expanded to meet the demands for online learning in our COVID world… we embraced the concept of creating a digital nation and putting Guyana on the same footing as her colleagues in the Caribbean and the rest of the world,” she stressed.
According to the former minister, secure internet through an e-government network connected over 158 primary schools, 105 secondary schools, 30 technical and vocational institutions, while her ministry opened 173 ICT hubs, provided free internet to RDC and NDC offices, and internet to over 72 hinterland communities, among other things.
