We must create wealth before distributing it; oil alone won’t secure our future – Jagdeo

Wealth must first be created before it can be fairly distributed, Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo emphasised, warning that oil alone is not a sustainable foundation for Guyana’s long-term future.

He made the point during the “Starting Point” podcast on Tuesday, highlighting that the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) has always been careful and deliberate about economic policies – unlike the Peoples National Congress-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).

“From the beginning, when we resumed office in 1992, we had to focus first on re-establishing a sustainable macroeconomic environment,” Jagdeo explained, noting that “when you’re using 153 percent of revenue to service debt, or your debt is nine times the size of the economy as it was back then, there is no sustainability”.

Jagdeo, who served as Minister of Finance from 1995 to 1999 and then as President from 1999 to 2011, emphasised that even before oil and gas, the PPP/C demonstrated its ability to carefully manage the economy.

“We managed, even before oil and gas, to restore our country to viability and solvency. We were using less than 10 percent of revenue to service debt in 2015, when we lost power. And also, the debt had come down from nine times the size of the economy to 45 percent of GDP, which is one of the lowest figures in the world. And at the same time, we started tackling the essential things of rebuilding, although we’re tackling the macroeconomy – schools, roads, hospitals, sea defences, you know, making sure higher wages were paid to the public service. So, it’s a package,” he outlined.

On the other hand, Jagdeo posited that “the Opposition would have you believe that all you can do is spend.”

“Everything they do is promise about how to spend. So, we say $100,000 in cash grant, they would say $400,000, five times a year. We say we want to double old age pension, they want to triple it or quadruple it.”

But Jagdeo is urging the electorate to be think critically about these promises.

“It’s never going to happen, because we don’t have the resources to do that…You have to create wealth before you distribute wealth. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just fooling you,” he noted.

Jagdeo, who is also the General Secretary of the PPP/C, explained that before his party makes a promise to citizens, it is carefully calculated.

“When we make a promise, like we did in 2020, we made several promises. We were in opposition, but we costed every one of those. And that’s why we’ve been able to deliver on them,” he explained.

“Every one of those things have been accomplished and delivered [is] because we were careful about our fiscal policies,” he added.

On the contrary, Jagdeo reminded that the PNC/APNU – as recent as 2015-2020 –has never been able to fulfill its promises to the electorate. He surmised that it is because the leaders within that political grouping are unable to manage the economy prudently or craft realistic policies grounded in fiscal responsibility.

This inability, Jagdeo contended, is also showing on the PNC/APNU current campaign trail.

“APNU and the others are not talking about how they would create wealth. We’re the only party that says we’re going to establish a development bank so that people can get small loans to start businesses…which is at zero interest rate. And that means they would create wealth for themselves and the country, they would employ people. We’re going to have a favourable environment for miners or farmers or fishermen, for every sector of the economy, all of the people, so they can create more wealth…And everything, if you notice, for them is based on high oil income in the future. So, their planning, everything they’re saying, we will deliver only if we get oil money,” Jagdeo asserted.

He added that, “APNU has never demonstrated that it had the capacity to manage the economy. So, people have to pay attention to a lot of these things”.

According to Jagdeo, the government has to plan for an economy that is not only reliant on oil and gas revenue and the PPP/C is the only party that has demonstrated its ability to do this.

“No other party talks about this. They’re only talking about oil revenue,” he posited.