A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) Prime Ministerial candidate Juretha Fernandes on Friday responded to a warning by General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Bharrat Jagdeo that political parties should not build development plans based on oil, citing the commodity’s volatility.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Fernandes said she disagreed with the Vice President’s response to APNU plan to finance its development plans with oil revenues. Though APNU presidential candidate Aubrey Norton during the press conference clarified that their initiatives will not be funded solely through oil, Fernandes strongly objected to Jagdeo’s statement, calling it hypocritical. She pointed to years of the opposition’s concerns regarding the government’s borrowing practices, which she said were based on projected oil income, without regard for same the potential drop in prices.
“So to hear them come now and speak about oil prices may come down is the most hypocritical and nonsensical thing that you can hear from the Vice President,” she said.
Fernandes added, “He is hypocritical. He has been borrowing and basing those borrowings off projected oil revenues and it is not his place to come now to speak as though he has any command over prudent spending of our oil resources.”
She also cited a World Bank report which noted that just under 50% of national revenues were being channelled into capital expenditure. According to Fernandes, much of this spending is being wasted.
She explained, “…the 2025 budget was $1.132 trillion and in that budget, over $700 billion was allocated to capital expenditure and… 40% is being wasted on inefficiencies. You’re basically saying that $295 billion is being wasted in inefficiencies. When we say inefficiency, that’s a nice way of the World Bank saying corruption.”
She argued that if corruption was addressed, the country would have more than $295 billion to reinvest in the people-centered development initiatives APNU is pushing in its 2025 campaign.
