🌳💵Land grands and budget deliberations.

Happy Monday!

This week we continue to cover the controversial land grab by the Mennonites, the state budget, and the inflation of the prior year.

Continued critique of Mennonites in Suriname and land allocated to agriculture.

• The government continues to be under pressure about land allocation to the Mennonites with the ABOP/PL faction in the National Assembly also criticizing the motion. Alongside the ABOP/PL faction, the motion has also been critiqued by the country’s Indigenous communities.

• There has been a lot of critique as there are documents that state around 404 hectares being provided to the Mennonites while the Minister of Land Management and Forest Policy, Dinotha Vorswijk, stated that she knows nothing of land being given to Mennonites.

• The opposing parties state that the government has been unclear and has provided contradictory information. The Vice President has stated that the government will aim to clear up this issue soon.

  

  Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock & Fisheries (LVV) in Suriname

• For the application of 500,000 hectares suspected of being submitted by Mennonites, submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock & Fisheries (LVV), Minister Parmanand Sewdien has stated that this has nothing to do with Mennonites but that 25% of that land may be suitable for agriculture.

• He went on to argue that this could lead to Suriname becoming a food hob in Caricom. He has stated that they are working on this project to become more export-oriented and focus on training and staffing agricultural facilities and training farmers.

• They are focused on continuing to avoid deforestation within a specific distance of rivers and creeks and they also need to focus on carbon credits, international guidelines as well as conserving biodiversity.

• They are working together with the Ministry of Spatial Planning & Environment to conduct further tests of soil, agroecological remediation, and agro-hydrological conditions to see if the land is suitable. However, there continues to be confusion about the 404 hectares supposedly supplied to the Mennonites by the government which Minister Sewdien has stated he would not approve.

The National Assembly passes the government budget for 2024 with funding for reforms and social support.

• Suriname’s government budget was approved by the National Assembly passing with 28 votes in favor and 12 against. The budget was opposed by the parties NDP and BEP. For the year 2024, the government assigned SRD 200 million (around USD 5.5 million) to ministries, the Judiciary, and the National Assembly.

• President Santokhi was satisfied with the approval of the budget and his party, the VHP highlighted the importance of continued social support measures that the budget provided. The amount allocated to social support is around SRD 20.5 billion (around USD 545 million) which the VHP claimed would provide economic relief and stimulate economic growth.

• The budget was criticised by the NDP’s leader Rabin Parmessar as he argued the government’s lack of focus on poverty of the nation, corruption scandals, transparency, and security matters.

• The leader of the BEP party Ronny Asabina is also concerned about the amount of people who will be able to be helped by the package and has argued that there is a lack of budget for sustainable development and for increasing productivity in the country.

• The ABOP/PL faction led by Vice President Ronnie Brunswijk approved the budget after many shifts in budget and stated that now policy could be implemented with money made available by the government.

As the economy recovers, inflation continues to be high dropping to 32.6% throughout 2023.

• Inflation for 2023 dropped to 32.6%. While this is still very high for inflation numbers, inflation dropped 22% from where it stood in 2022.

• This represents a huge improvement in the country and will benefit those suffering from the high cost of living. This represents Suriname’s continued recovery from its economic crisis.

• In December 2023, consumer prices rose by an average of 0.1% compared to November of 2023. Consumer prices increased 32.6% compared to 2022 in December. Even though these increases seem high, they represent a decline in the rising inflation trend that the country suffered under.

• Suriname uses the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a measure of the average change in the price of a fixed package of goods and services for consumption purposes. In Suriname’s CPI there are 316 items.

• These prices are recorded at various locations throughout the country including Paramaribo, Wanica, Nickerie, Commewijne, and Saramacca.

• However, measurements are not done in the districts Marowijne, Brokopondo, and Sipaliwini where prices of goods are estimated to be much higher than in the districts recorded.