{"id":15974,"date":"2024-01-26T18:22:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=15974"},"modified":"2024-01-26T18:22:57","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:22:57","slug":"agriculture-minister-mustapha-and-opposition-mp-jordan-face-off-on-budget-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/agriculture-minister-mustapha-and-opposition-mp-jordan-face-off-on-budget-debates\/","title":{"rendered":"Agriculture Minister Mustapha and Opposition MP Jordan Face Off on Budget Debates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p>As the budget debates intensify in the National Assembly on Day 3, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha and Opposition MP Vinceroy Jordan engaged in a debate on allocations and investments in the agriculture sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Opposition MP Vinceroy Jordan opened the debates by urging the government to implement a more targeted approach for expanding the local agriculture sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He argued that not enough is being done to promote the expansion of rural agriculture and involve more youths in the sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jordan also accused the government of investing in programs that don&#8217;t necessarily benefit farmers across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Samuel-Zulfi-Vincent.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In response, Minister Zulfikar Mustapha rejected these claims, stating that since 2020, the agriculture sector has undergone a rapid transformation catering to both small-scale rural-based subsistence-level farming enterprises and dynamic large-scale plantation industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Minister Mustapha emphasized Guyana&#8217;s commitment to leading CARICOM in the ambitious goal of reducing its import bill by 25 percent by 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also highlighted the government&#8217;s focus on expanding the sugar industry, pointing to the $6 billion allocated to GuySuCo this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government has budgeted $97.6 billion for the agricultural sector in 2024, compared to the total of $60 billion allocated in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the budget debates intensify in the National Assembly on Day 3, Minister of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha and Opposition MP Vinceroy Jordan engaged in a debate on allocations and investments&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[366,362,363,350,359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-development","category-low-carbon-development","category-national-transformation","category-news","category-top-picks"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15977,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15974\/revisions\/15977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}