“An abysmal performance” – Min Ramson slams Opposition’s budget performance, defends culture
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson Jr, on Thursday, accused the Opposition of trivialising culture and exposing its “complete unreadiness” to govern, as he dissected their 2026 Budget presentations in the National Assembly.
He dismissed their contribution as “an abysmal performance,” charging that Opposition speakers offered no credible economic analysis, no cost–benefit assessment of proposals and “no policy debate to speak of,” despite their attacks on the culture budget.
“They struggle with basic economic fundamentals and still want to argue that culture is not important,” Ramson said, adding that the debate had revealed “a complete absence of readiness, even for an opposition.”
Minister Ramson reminded the House that for five years in office, the APNU+AFC coalition dismantled the stand‑alone Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, while repeatedly criticising PPP/C budgets from the sidelines.
“Now the truth is revealed,” he declared. “The people re‑endorsed the PPP/C government and His Excellency President Irfaan Ali for a second term, with a wider margin.”
Ramson argued that the PPP/C’s decision to restore the ministry after 2020 was a deliberate economic and nation‑building choice. “At the level of the People’s Progressive Party, we knew then, and we know now, how important this ministry is,” he stressed.
Pointing to concrete measures, the minister highlighted the restoration of the Guyana Prize for Literature, accreditation of the Institute of Creative Arts, the “Write to Stage” theatre support programme, which has already put multiple local plays on stage, and some $120 million in cultural and creative industry grants to support creatives, alongside other incentives.
He also underscored ongoing allocations aimed at inclusion and heritage, citing the PPP/C’s support for extending the International Decade for People of African Descent and the retention of $100 million in Budget 2026 for programmes benefitting African‑Guyanese communities.
Despite repeated points of order from the Opposition benches, Ramson held his ground, insisting that the exchange had drawn “a sharp line” between a government focused on delivery and an Opposition “unprepared to govern and unfit to oppose.”
*