Upon examining the financial health of the economy, Senior Minister with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh has found that there was blatant mismanagement of billions of dollars by the former regime.
According to the Minister, the state of public finances were ‘nothing short of disastrous’ while noting that the government collected revenues totaling G$992 billion between the period 2015-2019, then utilized same through wasteful and inefficient expenditure. In fact, he said that total government spending amounted to G$1.2 trillion. After accounting for grants received, the Finance Minister noted that the aggregate fiscal deficit of the central government amounted to G$130 billion over the five year period.
On the subject of external debt, the Minister pointed out that the previous government had contracted new external debt of US$400 million during its five years in office.
On domestic financing, Minister Singh pointed out that when the PPP/C demitted office in 2015, it had left a net deposit at the Central Bank of G$16 billion. But after five years of economic mismanagement by the previous Government, Dr. Singh said that the new Government is now burdened with a net overdraft of G$93 billion at the Central Bank.
He added that if this overdraft is counted as domestic debt, this would result in an effective breach of the domestic debt ceiling.
In addition to this, Dr. Singh said that the Government is also saddled with the G$30 billion NICIL bond of which G$17 billion has been drawn down, and a staggering G$12 billion owed to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) by government entities, including G$7 billion owed to the utility by the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI).
