Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
Breaking a lance with Ralph Ramkarran
Dear Editor,
I refer to an article in the Mirror newspaper by Ralph Ramkarran captioned “Uncontrolled Money Supply is Inflationary and Harmful.” I could not find the empirical evidence to support his arguments; thus by his own action, he has rendered his words into mere hearsay. He claimed the following:
1. Calls by the opposition for relief to the workers and pensioners will have negative impacts on the beneficiaries.
2. There was a spike in inflation in the early 2000s after the large wage increases awarded by the Armstrong Commission.
Let me take this opportunity to put these hearsays from Ramkarran to rest by presenting the facts below by way of the Official Statistics on the Inflation rate vs. the Wage Increases during the Jagdeo regime:
If one is to look carefully at the facts, one would be advised that the highest rate of inflation during the rule of Jagdeo from 1999-2011 occurred in the years 2007 and 2008; not 1999 and 2000 when the Armstrong Commission instructed that 31.6% and 26.6% be paid out as wage increases.
In the year 2000, when the workers secured wage increases of 26.6%, the inflation rate was 6.1% and we must factor in that the wage increases in the previous year was 31.6%. If one is to compare this to the years 2005 – 2008, the average inflation rate was 8.5% when the average wage increase was 6.5%.
So whom is Mr. Ramkarran trying to fool with this political pomposity?
What Ramkarran is failing to tell the Guyanese public is that his party has committed the taxpayers to some $9 billion on the Fiber Optic Cable Project; moneys that could have been better spent by the private sector. The AFC remain committed to privatizing this project in compliance with its philosophy that the private sector is the engine of growth and job creation.
What Ramkarran is failing to tell the Guyanese public is that if the Public Procurement Commission was established and put it into the hands of honest people like Dr Anand Goolsarran, then over a period of time, some $20 billion per year according to a World Bank Study, can be saved by capping the financial leakages in the Treasury. Clear example of this financial waste includes a company that secured a single source pharmaceutical contract for close to $1 billion a year from a friend with no guarantee to the people on both the quality and quantity.
Another example is the loss of some $600 million on the Amaila Falls Road, $40 billion on the Skeldon Factory and the list can go on and on.
What Ramkarran fails to tell the Guyanese public was that the old Skeldon factory took 12 or13 tonnes of cane to produce 1 tonne of sugar, but that his Government spent $40 billion on a so-called state of the factory and according to the PPP, the most modern sugar factory in the Caribbean but when it was completed it consumed 20 tonnes of cane to produce 1 tonne of sugar. If this decline in efficiency by some 53% after spending G$40 billion is not an uneconomical spend then what is?
The savings from unnecessary public projects and from cutting the corruption on the special contracts to friends of the PPP cabal would have been properly applied by the AFC; to fund all the financial measures in the Party’s Action Plan.
Let me assure Mr. Ramkarran and others of his mindset that the campaign is over and in the interest of compromised and delivering the goods to the people ASAP; the AFC has modified its expectations to recognize that to best help the people, we have to work with both APNU and the PPP to move Guyana forward. Thus as Cathy Hughes said, we are not in the opposition for the save of opposing, we got better things to do with our time.
The history books will remember Cde. Boysie Ramkarran as an honest, witty and jovial politician, well known as a fighter for the working class. If Cde. Boysie were alive today; the AFC would have been the only political party to represent his views and principles. I ask the goodly gentleman to think deeply on the question – “How would history remember Cde. Ralph?”
Regards
Sasenarine Singh
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