instead he has talked up the president’s promise of the diversification of Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) saying that such a move will reduce the country’s food import bill.

It is important to note that despite millions of taxpayers’ dollars being pumped into GuySuCo, the corporation is yet to make a profit as it has failed to meet target time and time again. At his weekly press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo told the media that President’s Irfaan Ali’s speech at the Enmore Martyrs’ activity earlier in the week on how GuySuCo will fit into the vision for a diversified economy, was met with “a healthy dose of skepticism and mischaracterisation, or we want to know the numbers, how you’re achieving 25 by 2025.”

The VP explained that the concept was birthed when CARICOM leaders got together and set an aspirational goal, to address the skyrocketing food import bill in the region. There it was decided that there would be an enhanced focus on agriculture to determine if more food can be supplied to the region as part of the food security agenda.

“When this was launched here in Guyana and the heads made their speeches, the president pointed out and I spoke in the afternoon of that very day to a technical group of people at the convention center, and I said for us to achieve this, we will need about $7 billion US of investment in the four, three or four remaining years, the three years to achieve that target, and it has to be done across the region,” he said.

Jagdeo highlighted that he had lamented the fact that in most Caribbean countries, agriculture did not feature in their budgets majorly and there was no major incentive scheme for agriculture. “…we looked at the region and we examined the incentive regime for tourism or the financial sector or other services, and there were very lucrative incentive regimes but very little for agricultural investment. (Kaieteur News)