Guyanese to benefit from 8,000 part-time jobs to cushion cost of living – VP Jagdeo

Guyanese will soon benefit from a host of employment opportunities, as the PPP/C Government moves aggressively towards making some 8,000 part-time jobs available nationwide.

During an online interview Thursday evening, Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said the strategic approach will provide long- term support to citizens amid the increasing cost of living, due to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic and other social issues globally.

Persons along the Essequibo coast have begun filling out application forms for the 800 temporary jobs, announced by the Vice President, during his recent outreach to the region.

Dr. Jagdeo believes the move will provide added financial aid to residents. He explained that only one person from a household could benefit from the initiative.

The administration is aggressively pushing to provide 50,000 jobs over a five-year period, as was promised in its manifesto. It has invested a significant number of resources to strategically enhance the lives of citizens, since taking office in August 2020.

The Vice President pointed out that the venture was not easy for government, since the previous government left no workable plans or finances to offset the nation’s development agenda.

“In addition to that, there were many problems we had to fix like spending of large sums of money illegally in the period after the no confidence motion. A lot of liabilities that were left for people who supplied services in that period, fixing those liabilities,” Dr. Jagdeo relayed.

Additionally, he explained that more than 30,000 jobs were lost during the previous APNU+AFC Administration’s tenure. Persons in the mining and agriculture sectors had to pay large sums of money on Value Added Tax (VAT) for machinery and equipment; while production and economic activities fell.

Even production in the forestry sector had collapsed to almost half of the amount that was recorded in 2014 during the last PPP/C Government’s term. The country also saw a decrease in retail trade.

“Almost every sector except rice shrunk in the agriculture sector and that is not true to the government’s effort, because the government (APNU+AFC) said that’s private business. They increased the tax on fertiliser and pesticide.

The only reason why the rice industry did fairly well, because the global price for oil and gas was very low. It was about $30 per barrel in 2015, now it’s over $100 per barrel,” the Vice President noted.

Guyana is now seeing the light of the day, the Vice President underscored, as most of the major plans are either in the tendering stage or have already been implemented.

He said while there is prudent evidence that government has already fulfilled about 80 per cent of its manifesto promises, it is not satisfied and is pushing for more.

He said the government is working diligently to achieve the promises made to the electorate.