While international financing has declined, Minister in the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar yesterday told the National Assembly that this year’s budget has $4.9b to repair vulnerable sea defences.
The Minister’s disclosure was in response to APNU+AFC Parliamentarian, Amanza Walton-Desir’s accusations that government has failed to fortify Guyana’s sea defences. Walton-Desir, addressing the House earlier in the day, said the government was not focused on upgrading and building sea defence structures to protect the country’s vulnerable coastline.
“This government is running around this country building roads, building bridges, building hotel rooms, building synthetic tracks and failing to do the most important thing, and that is to protect from flooding and from the sea coming in on us,” Walton-Desir said as she pointed out that countries across the globe have been fortifying themselves “against climate change and rising sea levels, but we here in Guyana, are doing the opposite.”
Indar, who addressed the House a few hours later, dismissed the Opposition Member’s allegations and said that since taking office in August 2020, sea defence has been a priority of his government. “The entire coastland, on all the islands… everywhere on the coastal front, we are doing sea defence work…We don’t need [Walton-Desir] to come here and lecture us about sea defence, she is out of her league,” Indar vehemently said as he dismissed the comments. Indar clarified to the House that the local budgetary allocation in his year’s budget was increased and it was the “foreign element that went down.” He did not miss the opportunity to slam the previous APNU+AFC government for allowing the sea defence at Mahaicony to break away during 2018-2020 period.
“When we came into government, from my first day in government, I was in Dantzig (Mahaicony) where thousands of acres of farmlands were destroyed and can’t be replanted unto today. We have put billions of dollars from 2020, 2021, 2022 and now 2023, $4.9B, into sea defence,” the minister stressed. Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh last Monday in his budget presentation, said the allocated amount will see the construction of rip-rap sea defence structures in Abrams Zuil, Anna Catherina, Zeeburg, Better Hope, Belvedere, Joppa, Eversham and Speightland.
Indar further stated that this year’s budget continues to set the government apart from the opposition through spending on capital projects. He stressed that the APNU+AFC government was more focused on current expenditure in their budgets and the amount allocated to capital projects this year alone exceeds what was spent on capital projects during the tenure of the coalition government.
Further rejecting the opposition claims of bias, Indar said they are executing works in all sections of Guyana without discrimination. “We are doing road works all over this country without any biases. We are building the road where the Opposition Leader lives in Prince William Street, Plaisance,” he declared.
The $38.5B allocation for the road programme in this year’s budget is to be spent on building infrastructure across the country in areas that seemed to have been forgotten. He noted that the expenditure is a part of the government’s plan to ensure development takes place in every community. “This budget will see rapid implementation in 2023. We will put the work out, we will spend this money, we will get the programmes to the people, we will help everyone. This budget is breaking barriers – economic and social. It is designed to help every single man, woman and child. So, anybody coming here to throw cold water on it is just making mischief,” the minister said to applause by his colleagues on the government side of the House.
