Jagdeo slams APNU’s “pathetic” Development Strategy

PPP General Secretary Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo has criticised APNU’s Development Strategy as “pathetic” and lacking in substance indicating that the party has no plan to run the country.

“So, this is their development strategy that was unveiled, that Stabroek News called their development strategy, this is pathetic…It’s nonsense, they have no plan, they have demonstrated that over and over again, no plan to run the country, they never had a plan, inspite of all that you hear from them,” Dr. Jagdeo expressed at his weekly press conference on Thursday.

He highlighted the APNU’s lack of vision compared to the PPP/C government’s plans for specific projects and programmes.

“If you look at this press release that they issued, this is like, I don’t want to be harsh, but really, it’s just a set of slogans put together in five areas, this cant be a development strategy.

“Any first-year UG student could come up with a more detailed vison than this one here, and it’s a rehash of some of the things, so they will increase profit faster by not allowing new projects to go ahead in the oil and gas industry so that we can get more money initially,” Dr. Jagdeo said while referring to the contents of the document.

The GS noted that maximising oil and gas revenues to invest in long-term development is essential, not like APNU’s short-sighted approach of ‘eating up’ all the revenue without investing in the future.

“This was clearly demonstrated in the five years that they were in government when the capital budget for every one of those five years was lower than 2014’s capital budget, so effectively they were just eating up all of our revenue, but without building long-term infrastructure that will create future growth, future income, more jobs etc.,” Jagdeo highlighted.

APNU’s claim to reduce financial waste is contradicted by its record of increasing government rental costs, vehicle expenses, and food costs by over $3 billion per year.

“Under the APNU era, if you checked the newspapers, you will see that very few projects were actually tendered and we have this documented, so this is pure nonsense again,” Dr. Jagdeo noted.

He also rubbished APNU’s claim of building a supportive environment for small businesses.

“They are the ones who laid a series of taxes, from higher water charges, land charges for the farmers, higher VAT on pesticides, fertiliser, a business license almost increase by 500 per cent… Small businesses collapsed in large numbers in the five years under APNU.”

Jagdeo also criticised APNU’s plan to commercialise corn and soy, noting that his administration had already formed a consortium to produce these crops on a large scale and make Guyana self-sufficient by 2025.