Oil money to finance 2022 budget

- Resilient infrastructure to battle climate change, transformational projects in Budget

Monies from the Natural Resource Fund is one of the main financial avenues that the government will be utilising to fund the National 2022 Budget. This will minimise the issue of borrowing from external sources.

This is according to Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance Dr. Ashni Singh during an interview with NCN.

Over US $534M is sitting in Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This is the first time the government will be withdrawing monies from the fund.

"Clearly, one and a very important source of financing will be the Natural Resource Fund..so that itself makes Budget 2022 historic from the standpoint that Budget 2022 will be the first budget that will be built on a fiscal framework that includes fiscal financing from the Natural Resource Fund,"

the minister posited. The finance minister said major transformational projects, tax reductions, and initiatives aimed at improving the lives of people are expected in the National Budget. The minister noted that Guyana has been proven to be vulnerable to the effects of Climate Change as weather patterns have changed and the country has experienced severe flooding during 2021.

As such, the government will be investing in infrastructure that can make Guyana resilient towards Climate Change.

“And so building resilience to those challenges is also an important part of what we are planning to do in 2022 and is part of the infrastructural agenda, reinforcing our resilience to climate change,"

Minister Singh said.

The finance minister said the government wants to ensure there is critical infrastructure in place for long term strength, resilience and the competitiveness of the economy.

Dr. Singh alluded to the President’s commitment to the replication of three more canals in regions 3, 5 and 6 in to prevent severe flooding in the coastlands.

Budget will be presented in the National Assembly on January 26.