Oil revenue benefitting all Guyanese – President Ali tells Al Jazeera Journalist

Jan 01, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – Though a recent World Bank Report said that some 48 percent of Guyanese are living in poverty, the Guyanese Head-of-State, Irfaan Ali is arguing that revenue from the oil and gas sector is benefitting the entire population.

The President, during an interview with Al Jazeera News that was only released yesterday, argued that the People’s Progressive Party has invested the resources from the sector into various channels that have provided ease.

President Irfaan Ali during the interview with Al Jazeera Journalist

Ali was told by the Journalist that a representative from the local Transparency Institute explained that average Guyanese if spoken to on the streets would say they are not feeling the benefits of this money and are not sure if in the future they will.

In response, the President contended that, “some people are self-appointed” professors.

“I don’t know what survey he did but let me ask you, let me put this back to you now, when you are able to give your citizens the best possible health care; when you are able to announce measures that is giving every single citizen who require dialysis a cheque every year to help them with that dialysis; when you are able to give every school child a transportation grant to help them to go to school; when you are able to give them a uniform grant; when you are able to increase old age pension; when you are able to ensure that the primary health care is working at its best for the people; when you are able to build roads all across the country to reduce the cost of transportation (through) farm to market access roads that reduce the cost of production, make the farmers more competitive; when you are able to expand and open up tens of thousands of new acreage of land for agriculture; when you are able to deliver 50,000 house lots to people; when you are able to deliver a children and maternity hospital that is world class to reduce maternal death; when you are able to invest in cancer treatment; when you are able to invest in free education- 20,000 scholarships; when you are able to have a programme that will see 150,000 Guyanese trained as coders; when I am able to get Al Jazeera to come to Guyana, because of oil, but I can use this opportunity to showcase the rest of Guyana, isn’t there benefit that is coming to the people,” the Head of State reasoned.

Ali said “the sad thing” about the main stream media is that they would not go to developed states to ask whether the ordinary people felt the effects of revenue from fossil fuel but in small developing states, especially countries that are termed third world, some believe these countries are simply not positioned to manage the resource and “need the guiding light.”

The President was keen to note that contrary to this belief, the Guyana Government has a clear plan for the utilization of its resources.

“We have a very definitive plan and that plan includes all of humanity. I have made it very clear that the prosperity of Guyana must lead to the prosperity of the Caricom region and the region around us,” President Ali said.

The Head-of-State said, “For someone to say they don’t understand how this is translating to the benefit (of the people) is someone who is actually naive or someone who does not want to acknowledge the transformation that is taking place and sometimes you have to understand it is politically driven. Small societies like these, you have many actors who shelter under the umbrella of independence but are very politically charged and politically driven.”

In November, it was reported that a recent study conducted in Guyana by the World Bank has found that approximately 48 percent of the country lives in poverty, surviving on less than US$5.5 or GYD$1,000 per day.

The Government later issued a rebuttal to this, insisting that these statistics were garnered during the tenure of the former A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition’s term in office- between 2015 to 2020.