Balancing pay increases with welfare, wealth creation opportunities- Pres Ali

Last Updated on Wednesday, 16 July 2025, 22:52 by Writer

President Irfaan Ali on Wednesday said government was working to ensure the right mix of increased wages and salaries, welfare and driving private-sector led growth to generate more personal wealth.

“Its not only about increasing salaries. Many people look at it narrowly as increasing salary. It’s increasing welfare. It’s creating new opportunities of revenue for you so that you can invest your resources,” he said.

Addressing hundreds of persons at his People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) manifesto consultation, he said government did not want to hike wages and salaries to the detriment of the private sector. “When you look at salaries, the government cannot be in a position where we are out-competing the private sector and we have to look at ways in which persons can earn variable income by investing in opportunities in the country,” he said.

The PPPC presidential candidate promised that government would inject financing into agriculture, mining and forestry to assist small and medium-sized players in the natural resource sub-sectors. He pledged that government would “invest heavily” in technology, capital and infrastructure in those sectors. Dr Ali restated that government would review the Local Content Act to make more opportunities are available to mainly small and medium-sized enterprises.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told attendees, who were drawn from a number of private sector organisations, professions, sport, and trade unions, that if elected at the September 1, 2025 general and regional elections, government planned to continue revising its taxation policy aimed at putting more money in Guyanese pockets.

“There are several principles that have guided us, again, in addressing taxation so one is more money in people’s pocket, two is that it has to be family-friendly so we have started orienting the taxation system to support families that is why now we are increasing allowances and that will only go for people with families, children et al. It has to incentivise economic activities,” he said. Mr Jagdeo said the poultry, fishing, rice farming, mining would all receive favourable taxation. “Our taxation system must not penalise wealth creation, it must incentivise the manufacturing sector,” he said. Already, he said government had made tax allowances for overtime and second jobs.

Attendees at the packed-to-capacity ballroom of the Princess Hotel, Providence, East Bank Demerara also heard the PPP reiterate that a development bank would be established to co-invest with local innovators and entrepreneurs in realising their plans. In that regard, Dr Ali said government planned to convert the Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST) into a national innovation hub. “If you are able to match lending with a zero percent interest rate, we can bring down the interest rate in the commercial banks from 6 percent or 7 percent to 3 percent for SMEs (small and medium enterprises),” he said.

The President also said government was fine-tuning an immigration policy, based on the experiences of other countries, to help Guyana grapple with a labour shortage at a time when there were several projects.