PPP/C always “put people first” – Finance Minister

– says Parliament composed of “most fragmented, weakest opposition in living memory”

Senior Minister with Responsibility for Finance Dr Ashni Singh on Friday evening delivered a fiery and passionate presentation to close off the week-long debates on the massive $1.558 trillion Budget 2026, which he says will see the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government continuing to put the Guyanese people first and delivering to them. This year’s budget is the President Irfaan Ali-led PPP/C’s first fiscal plan for the country since being re-elected to office in September 2025.
Under the theme “Putting People First”, Budget 2026 is 12.7 per cent larger than last year’s and is focused on improving the lives of and creating opportunities for the Guyanese people. But over the past week, members of the combined 29-seat Parliamentary opposition – comprising A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) and Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) – claimed that the budget has nothing for the citizens. In dismissing this notion, Minister Singh pointed to the PPP/C’s unenviable track record of delivering on promises, which has handed the ruling party its 36-seat majority in the National Assembly.
“I presented this budget under the theme ‘Putting people first’. Well, we have always put people first,” Dr Singh stated in response to the criticisms from the People’s National Congress Reform-led APNU.

“Selfish objectives”
The Finance Minister then turned his attention to WIN leader and Opposition Leader, United States (US)-indicted Azruddin Mohamed, who in his contributions to the debates said Budget 2026 is “putting people last.” But according to Dr Singh, the newly elected Leader of the Opposition (LOO) is “endangering” Guyanese for his “selfish” gains.
He was referring to the indictments of the LOO and his father, Nazar Mohamed, by a grand jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on 11 criminal charges ranging from wire fraud and mail fraud to money laundering, primarily connected to the export of gold to the US by his family’s company, Mohamed’s Enterprises.
Prior to the indictment, the father-and-son duo, along with their companies, were sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for large-scale corruption, including gold smuggling, money laundering and bribery, which involved avoiding over $50 million in taxes for the Guyanese Government. Locally, the Mohameds faced charges for billions of dollars in tax evasion that were withdrawn to facilitate their extradition to the US to answer to the 11-count indictment. During his nearly three-hour-long presentation, Dr Singh drew a parallel to the cautionary tale of Pablo Escobar – a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist and politician whom the Minister said exploited vulnerable people in pursuit of a very narrow personal effort to save himself.
Similarly, according to Dr Singh, Mohamed has chosen to ensnare Guyanese in his political movement with a speculative hope that this will somehow protect him.
“We have seen callous in Guyana before, particularly from the PNC (People’s National Congress). We have seen mercilessness, but this is a particularly callous effort to ensnare and endanger people…with purely selfish objectives,” the Minister contended. According to the Finance Minister, this is the pattern of behaviour that is being displayed by the current Parliamentary opposition. “We are in this Parliament with the most fragmented and weakest opposition in living memory,” he posited. This, Dr Singh highlighted, was demonstrated during the debates by the Opposition MPs over the past week as the House was regaled with spurious statements, comments and absurdities.

Building a modern Guyana
In contrast, he said the Government Parliamentarians presented an unmatched calibre, backed by the experience of towering political giants and a rich pride of newcomers, who championed the PPP/C’s fiscal plan for the next year. Dr Singh noted that Budget 2026 is the first instalment of the PPP/C implementation of its manifesto upon which the Guyanese people re-elected the party into office for the next five years. “We will continue to spend every single day…not only this week and this month, every day for the next five years, to ensure that the people of Guyana see steady and sustainable improvements in their lives… We are working hard; we are trying to build a modern Guyana, and we spent the whole of the last week speaking about the modern Guyana that we’re building. Have we solved every problem already? We haven’t. But we’re working every day to solve problems. That’s what we do; that is what responsible Governments do,” he stressed.
According to the Minister, the PPP/C is building a Guyana in which people can get a good quality education and training so that they can get good quality jobs and earn for themselves and their families, become home and vehicle owners and live comfortably in a safe and secure society that is developed with proper roads, utilities and social services.

“And we are seeing that, Mr Speaker, in every single social indicator: number of students attending high school, number of students passing examinations, access to improved health care. Whatever your political orientation might be, if you want training to become a doctor or nurse, we encourage [and] we train you for free, and you are guaranteed a job when you finish your training. We recognise that we need engineers, and we want young boys and girls to become engineers. We will now deliver engineering in Region Two, in Region Six, and Region Three. You can’t come to the coast to have access to university education? We will deliver it to your home, in your village, through the GOAL (Guyana Online Academy of Learning) Scholarship Programme… this is the Guyana that we’re building.”

Putting people first
Dr Singh went on to hit back at the indicted businessman-turned Opposition Leader’s criticism of the budget. “The Leader of the Opposition [on Friday said the budget is] putting people last. He said that with a lot of mirth and amusement. But to all of the children, who will be enjoying improved access to quality education in the more than 100 newly constructed modern schools across the country and who will benefit from the 40 additional schools that we are building right now, we are putting those children first.
Their parents, who no longer have to buy textbooks, their teachers, who no longer have to worry about buying basic school necessities because we are giving school grants – we are putting those teachers and those parents first.” He added that the Government is also prioritising around 14,000 students, whose parents no longer have to pay fees for up to eight Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) subjects, as well as 206,000 schoolchildren, each of whom will receive $85,000 this year through the “Because We Care” cash grant, uniform voucher, and transportation grant.
“So, when you say the budget has nothing for anybody, tell that to the parents of those children, the more than 90,000 old-age pensioners who will receive an increased pension, they’re not going to be benefiting from this budget. I could go on in every sector, in the farming communities, the sugar workers who will continue to be able to work in the sugar industry as we continue to strive to modernise the industry and make it viable and competitive. They don’t count. The rice farmers who will continue to benefit from our extension services and our support with paddy and fertiliser, they don’t count. The cash crop farmers who will benefit…they don’t count. The farmers who will be planting the 100,000-plus acres of new land that will be opening up for cultivation, they don’t count. Well, Mr Speaker, we count them, and I can assure you we will continue to put all of those people first,” Dr Singh declared.
According to the Finance Minister, under the PPP/C, more Guyanese are working and have a level of disposable income as well as assets that can be used as collateral to further increase their wealth. “We want to make sure that every single Guyanese who wants to set up a small business, we want them to be able to access credit, access financing. We will establish an SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) Development Bank. This budget includes US$100 million, and Mr Speaker, we’re going to use that money to give small business loans to small entrepreneurs at zero interest, at zero collateral… I could go on for a very long time, but…we really are at a truly historic moment in our country’s history in so many ways… And our pledge to all Guyanese is that not a single day will go by over the course of the next five years…that we, led by our President, will not be working hard to convince every single Guyanese person…that the People’s Progressive Party remains vastly superior amongst all competing political alternatives,” the Minister emphasised.