Electoral impasse could influence int’l funding

THE fact that Guyana is still grappling with an election impasse may hinder its receipt of COVID-19 funding from international financial institutions.

This was pointed out by Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo on Thursday during an online media conference.

“We are aware that there are a few requests that are being processed, but I believe also because of the political situation in Guyana, while we are in transition to a government that will emerge after March 2, 2020 elections, that we cannot for sure say whether some of these international multinational lending agencies are going to be dealing with Guyana’s application any time soon. They probably will want to sit it out and wait until the president in sworn in,” he said.

Guyana, through the Ministry of Finance, has approached the World Bank with a request for US$5M in funding under the Rapid Response Facility.

Minister of Finance Winston Jordan has stated that, if approved, the sum will fund efforts coordinated by the Ministry of Public Health and other ministries to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Given the unprecedented challenges that COVID-19 poses, the bank expects to deploy up to $160 billion over the next 15 months to help countries protect the poor and vulnerable, support businesses, and bolster economic recovery.

In CARICOM, Haiti is the only country to have received a US$20 million grant for its COVID-19 Response Project.

If Guyana’s receipt of funding truly depends on a resolution of its electoral situation, it could be weeks more before the country is in the clear as the elections commission is still deliberating on operationalisation of a pending national recount.

The prime minister also noted that the elections impasse has influenced the government’s ability to provide stimulus packages, as it would have liked.

“There is no national budget — a 2020 budget — and until there is a 2020 budget all expenditures will have to be considered and approved by the Ministry of Finance. The NCTF doesn’t have that capacity to demand or to order the payment of monies or to grant the so-called stimulus packages,” he said.

Even so, Nagamootoo noted that Guyana maintains a good relationship with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) which has reconfigured several projects to become COVID-related projects, thereby opening up greater access to funding.

“I’m told that would be a huge sum of money, just under US$80M and we’re told that there are monies available in some other international agencies that could be tapped,” he said, naming the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as an example.

He also stated that India has noted that there is US $1M available to be converted into COVID-related assistance and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance are in pursuit of the matter with India.

Meanwhile, China should soon be providing some 30,000 masks to the country as well as ventilators.

Though there is concern about how Guyana’s electoral situation could affect its receipt of international financial support, the U.S. Embassy on Thursday released US$475,000 to the country to help address Guyana’s priority areas in the COVID-19 fight.