Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation, Deodat Indar, rejects Opposition claims that 58 per cent of Guyanese are living in poverty, criticising the figures as misleading and based on outdated data.
Speaking in the National Assembly on Thursday, Minister Indar stated the opposition’s reliance on an old regional report, ‘Ten Findings of Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean’, does not reflect the current conditions in Guyana.
“This report was published in November of 2024, and the report did have those numbers, but the data was taken from 2016-2018,” he stated to the assembly.
He noted that the period covered coincided with the APNU/AFC Administration’s tenure and did not account for subsequent developments, including the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The minister stated that COVID-19 disrupted economies worldwide from 2020 onwards, with some industries still struggling to recover.
“Recovery from COVID took years… a gradual process in various sectors across the globe, everybody suffered this. This report said 200 million people is in poverty in 18 nations. We are not an exception, but what we do with it will be accounted for in the budget,” he said.
Addressing opposition’s criticism of rising debt levels, Minister Indar stated that interest payments amounted to $73 billion, representing about 5.5 per cent of total government expenditure.
“Where is this huge debt that they talk about?” he asked.
He defended the government’s use of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF), explaining that $495 billion was being drawn to support the $1.558 trillion national budget. This amounts to approximately 31.7 per cent of total spending.
“That is roughly one third of the budget,” he said, rejecting claims that the fund is being misused.
Minister Indar accused the Opposition of inconsistency, saying they criticised the use of the NRF while simultaneously highlighting poverty statistics from the same regional report.
“So, damn if you do, damn if you don’t, that seems to be the philosophy (of the Opposition),” he said.
He maintained that government spending priorities are guided by the PPP/C’s manifesto, which was shaped by consultations with citizens.
“We went on the ground, people told us what they want, and that is what we put in the budget,” he said.
The public utilities minister further reaffirmed that the 2026 budget was designed to benefit every single Guyanese.