Jagdeo, Norton differ on opinion poll

Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 April 2022, 22:28 by Denis Chabrol

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton are taking different positions on an opinion poll on Guyana’s socio-economic and political conditions.

While Mr. Norton declined to go into details about the poll which was conducted for the United States-headquartered International Republican Institute (IRI), he said the findings would be used by his People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR). “As a political party, we have seen the report, we have analysed the report, we will utilise it,” he said. Mr. Norton accused government of discrediting the opinion poll because “the truth always offends” the incumbent People’s Progressive Party. He noted that the government has not questioned the methodology.

But Mr. Jagdeo on Wednesday described the representativeness of the poll’s outcome since only 300 of the 1,500 sample size responded, saying that it had a “very low response rate.” “They used 300 persons to extrapolate on the size of the population, the composition of the population,” he said.

He also criticised one of the questions in the survey conducted in January, 2022 about whether the resp0ndents they receive “adequate  information about the spending of the oil and gas money.” The question reads: “Do you know where to find information on how oil revenues are being used by the Government?

Mr. Jagdeo said that question was asked before the 2022 National Budget was presented to the National Assembly, and to date none has been spent by the Guyana government.