Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs Amanza Walton-Desir delivered her stance on the 2024 National Budget in the National Assembly on Tuesday, January 23rd.
In her address, she stated that the State’s foreign status is paramount to its efforts to move forward and that Guyana needs a sober and steady approach towards foreign policy.
She proposed five urgent policies that she believes are necessary to ensure that the country’s diplomatic relations are managed properly.
Among those, she stated the need for identifying and effectively articulating Guyana’s foreign policy, explaining that it is important “to provide a road map for engagement with the world.”
She proposes the establishment to a foreign relations council, which will reduce the chances of similar decisions as those made in the Argyle Agreement, which she claimed required further representation for the people of Guyana.
Secondly, she highlighted the need to employ astute diplomacy. She criticized the Government’s inability to appoint an ambassador to Brazil, a country that is our strongest ally in the fight against Venezuela.
Walton also demands the Government invest in the education and training of the country’s diplomatic corps. She emphasized the need for proper documentation for migrants, stating that if trends hold, there may be tens of thousands of undocumented Venezuelans in Guyana.
According to Walton-Desir, instead of crafting a sound migratory policy framework, the Government maintains a revulsion to study-led decisions.
Highlighting that oil and gold are expected to continue as major contributors to foreign earnings in the near future, she stressed the importance of foreign policies in a country, such as ours, that is active in international trade.
Among the many areas touched on in her presentation, the Shadow Minister stated that more needs to be done for the ordinary Guyanese, so that they may be able to live comfortably. She revealed that Guyanese are surviving on monies sent from relatives overseas.
According to her, the real income of public servants has decreased, regardless of the provisions the PPP/C claims to make to ease the cost of living for citizens.