With the 2025 General and Regional Elections just days away, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo is reminding electors that while Guyana’s oil and gas sector is poised to perform well in the future, the industry also comes with risks.
At his press conference on Thursday at Freedom House, Jagdeo said that opposition parties in the election race often highlight only the upside of the oil sector and plans they have to spend oil revenues, while ignoring the volatility of the global market.
“We are the only party that speaks about the balancing of risk. Should oil prices move downwards, all of the promises made by the opposition, in fact none of them could be kept. Our promises could be kept even with a moderation of international crisis because we have been at this before,” Jagdeo contended.
He argued that the PPP has the experience to steer the economy through difficult circumstances. “We did so when the country was bankrupt and we brought it back to financial viability and we have already been speaking extensively about how we create a diversified economy that will generate thousands of higher paying new jobs in the non-oil sector as well as ensure greater long-term prosperity,” Jagdeo noted.
As Guyana advances, Jagdeo stressed the need for capable leadership to continue navigating the economy.
He pointed to the PPP’s current term, during which he said several sectors were re-incentivized to boost growth. “We’ve done so in the mining sector by changing the entire incentive regime there. We did so in the rice industry. We did so in the sugar industry. We did so in the hospitality sector…we’ve done this for almost every sector of our country and so today we have much a much more diversified economy with more people earning and many more who are working in our country,” Jagdeo explained.
According to him, the PPP is the only party with the proven capacity to craft and execute sustainable plans. “Our party stands ahead of all the other competitors in that regard and so the people across this country would have experienced this, they would have seen this and they recognize that they’re not going to put their futures at risk by taking chances on people who even don’t have a clear agenda for the future,” the PPP General Secretary stated.
