Opposition’s Budget 2025 criticisms amateurish, inept & lazy – Jagdeo

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has labelled the Opposition’s criticisms of Budget 2025 as amateurish, inept and lazy.

Jagdeo said he observed some of the criticisms including catchphrases such as “it doesn’t help poor people”, “friends and family of PPP will get all of the benefits” and “we can’t eat roads and bridges”, etc.

“It’s a lazy way of responding to a technical document or plan for the country,” he told reporters during a press conference on Thursday.

He added that the Opposition’s criticisms are not profound, that they lack thought and are not researched.

“They just say things off the top of their heads because they sound good,” he expressed.

The $1.382 trillion Budget 2025 includes a number of transformative measures including the raising of the income tax threshold to $130,000 and the 3% income tax rate reduction, the $100,000 cash grant for newborns, the $10,000 one-off universal healthcare voucher, the reduction of taxes on overtime pay as well as the tax break for persons who work a second job.

The Peoples National Congress (PNC) has presented counterproposals to a number of the Budget 2025 measures.

One such proposal is the provision of over $100,000 a month cash plus benefits for households as well as $100,000 hard cash once or twice a year for adults.

Jagdeo said this promise is not sustainable and that it will cost more than the oil revenues being earned.

“And this is just one promise, they have a long list like this, a big list of stupid, stupid things. I don’t know if they don’t do calculations to say this but it sounds good to people,” the Vice President stated.

He also rejected the Opposition’s claims that it did not have access to oil resources during its period in office from 2025-2020 to deliver on a number of its promises to citizens.

Jagdeo reminded that the APNU+AFC government had significantly increased taxes, collecting some $90 billion more per year in tax revenue but instead of investing in the population, they spent it on themselves by increasing their salaries and upgrading their offices.