Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh yesterday announced that the 2023 budget will be presented on Monday, January 16, 2023.
A statement from the Ministry of Finance said that Singh has been over the last several months meeting with various stakeholders including the Private Sector, Government Ministries, other agencies and Civil Society. The statement pointed out that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government, led by President Irfaan Ali hosted another consultative meeting at State House on Thursday with representatives from several private sector agencies and other bodies to listen to their concerns and receive suggestions for the budget. These all formed part of possible inclusions as the Budget 2023 planning process continues. That session saw searing criticisms by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo of proposals that had come from the private sector and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana.
As with Budget 2022, the statement said that this year’s Budget is expected to see critical development programmes for Government being fast-tracked and many more expanded to reflect the Government’s transformational agenda for the country which has been taking it forward at a rapid pace over the last two years.
Oil revenues have resulted in vastly pumped up budgets and even on top of this the government has sought large amounts in supplementary financing. Critics have said that large allocations to various ministries would have been unspent at the end of the year.
It will be the fourth Budget by the current administration and the third one for Dr. Singh who commenced his current tenure as Senior Finance Minister in November 2020. Prior to this, Government’s first Budget for their current term was presented in August 2020.
The second Budget in 2021 was presented under the theme ‘A Path to Recovery, Economic Dynamism, and Resilience’ while the third was forwarded under the theme “Steadfast Against All Challenges, Resolute in Building Our One Guyana’. Budget 2021 saw a number of developmental measures and also included funding for the construction of a number of housing schemes and expansion of existing ones along with investment in the revitalization of the country’s sugar industry.
There were also programmes which the Government executed in partnership with private sector bodies and other stakeholders especially with regard to the tourism, hospitality and agriculture sectors, the statement said. Several relief cash grant measures were also instituted and this saw thousands of citizens across the country benefitting from the relief. A number of areas had been devastated by flooding and Government also delivered relief for affected persons especially those who had suffered loss of crops and livestock.
The statement said that Budget 2022 also saw major injections in a number of sectors including more expansion of Government’s housing drive, the infrastructure sector studded with an increased number of roads and bridges constructed, energy expansion and diversification, provisions for persons with disabilities and several injections toward Amerindian and Hinterland development as Government.
For this year’s budget, US$1b ($208b) in oil proceeds from the Natural Resource Fund will be available to finance programmes.
