The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has launched a “summary” of its manifesto as the party gears for the March 2, 2020 elections. This version contains some of the plans envisaged by the party. A more detailed manifesto, including the technical aspects and steps for achieving the outlined objectives, will be launched in January.
Plans outlined in the summery manifesto include the resuscitation of the presidential grants, and the “Because we care” initiative. Also, the party spoke about lowering taxes and implementing special provisions for women, children, Amerindians, miners and farmers.
PPP executive member, Gail Teixeira referred to the document as an “appetizer” with the main course to follow in another month.
Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, during his presentation, noted that the decision to release the “summary” of the PPP’s plan was a step towards ensuring that the electorate has a chance to look at the party’s policies and to generate public discussions.
He noted that the document was crafted after several consultations were done with citizens. This approach, he said, is different from what was done in the past, when parties would hurriedly launch a manifesto without giving the electorate a chance to “scrutinize” the policies and to make proper decisions.
He said too, that the party sharing its vision three months before the elections, will give the electorate enough time to seek clarity on some of the plans.
“You have an opportunity to ask us how we are going to achieve these plans…We are not going to make promises we can’t keep,” Jagdeo said.
Even before the party could launch its manifesto, it came under intense criticism from the government. During a press conference this morning at Congress Place, Sophia, People’s National Congress (PNCR) Executive Member, Joseph Harmon, said that the PPP/C has no viable plan to deliver on its promises.
The party’s promise of reopening sugar estates was scoffed upon by Harmon, who stated that the PPP/C does not indicate or outline the enabling processes that it will employ to fulfill this promise. On the other promises relating to ensuring independence of the oil and gas regulatory bodies, the Director-General of the Ministry of the Presidency said that the Jagdeo-led party is merely “reheating the food the Coalition government cooked”, since the PPP’s promise for a robust independent framework to manage oil resources has already been forwarded by the coalition to the National Assembly.
