The spin doctor and his web of deceit

May 25, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,

After reading Dr. Misir’s letter, “Mr. Mervin’s chimera,” (Kaieteur News, May 22), the only conclusion I came to was that Dr. Misir, a paid scribe/spinner for the Bharrat Jagdeo regime with an axe to grind, has to justify to his political bosses that he was worth being hired, so he seizes the opportunities I have created by my letters to engage in disingenuous spinning of what I write and by relying on the government’s propaganda factory to churn out statistics and data to try and put the Government in some sort of a good light.

After literally begging me more than once to state what promises President Bharrat Jagdeo ever made and broke, I relented and listed a few, and would now go so far as to remind the spin doctor that if he thinks his President can’t or won’t break his promise not to seek a third term, that his President is known to have repeatedly used his parliamentary majority to pass legislation he favours, so what is there to stop him from turning to Parliament to break his promise and seek a third term? The man even got Parliament to pass a law that was made retroactive to make up for an error pertaining to the Queens Atlantic II Investment group.

And in case the spin doctor counters that the President will still need the opposition parties’ support for a two-thirds majority vote to obtain a constitutional change to serve a third term, let the records show that the PPP and PNC conveniently teamed up when it was in their best interest to stop MPs from resigning and still showing up for parliamentary sittings. When it comes to politics in Guyana, I have learned you never say that it can’t happen, so unless the spin doctor has a political agenda of his own to keep the ‘broken promises’ issue alive, I see no material value in helping him do so beyond this point.

Second, the spin doctor accused me of trying ‘to discredit the economic achievements of Guyana because these achievements were made under the PPP/C Government’. That’s a lie. If there were real economic achievements that trickled down to the ordinary man in a greater measure, even under the PPP/C Government, I would not be writing letters to the contrary. Economic achievements that the Government has to talk about as opposed to the people talking about them are not actually achievements that are felt by ordinary Guyanese, but the kind of achievements the Government can advert to for political propaganda purposes, as is the case in the spin doctor’s writings.

Following what happened to Guyana’s economy during the PNC era, most Guyanese looked forward to the PPP

coming into power in 1992 with major plans for accelerated economic recovery and development. It had 28 years in which to have observed the mistakes of the PNC and, therefore, come in to power avoiding those mistakes while implementing a major long-term plan that could have been broken up into five or ten-year phases. But the only thing it seemed to have learned from the mistakes of the PNC was how to make its own share of mistakes by exploiting weaknesses in the corrupt system it inherited and sustained, and then either blame the PNC and others or bare-facedly shift the public’s focus through diversionary tactics.

It is true that the PNC did its darned worst to make Guyana ungovernable, but at no time in the past 16 years, including after the PNC ended its public protests and demonstrations, has the PPP or its Government bared any long-term plans for Guyana’s recovery and development. Instead, and as the Inter-American Development Bank attested, it was not until after President Jagdeo took over in 1999 when his Government chose to make debt relief its number one priority, and it is this debt relief that the spin doctor, in a comical display of irrational exuberance, decided to use as the catalyst of the President’s legacy.

So, contrary to the spin doctor, I am not discrediting any so-called ‘economic achievements of Guyana’ as much as I am blaming the Government for failing to record the kind of economic achievements that go beyond the pale of political rhetoric and directly impact the ordinary Guyanese so they would stop running to countries where they encounter humiliation at the hands of their hosts. Let other people come to Guyana in droves in search of a better life and allow Guyanese to show them first-class hospitality.

Besides, what the spin doctor is dubbing as ‘economic achievements of Guyana’ should really be seen in the context of the masters – the IMF and WB – setting up a debt relief game plan with rules and the servant – the President – faithfully playing along. That then allowed the IMF and WB to write off over US$800M in debt Guyana incurred during the PNC era and, at the same time, it also allowed President Jagdeo to tap into additional foreign loans ‘to revive the ailing social services sector and the dilapidated physical and social infrastructure’, according to the spin doctor. Bluntly put, the debt relief plan was what the IMF and WB wanted and managed to get President Jagdeo to comply with, whereas an economic recovery and development plan should have been what the Jagdeo regime wanted for Guyana based on constructive exploitation of its natural resource base.

And that is why the spin doctor’s statement that ‘securing debt relief was significant for Guyana’s development; but simultaneously, the Government consistently seeks out foreign direct investments,” is so bizarre, because FDIs were a blip on Guyana’s radar of recovery and development. For example, while over US$800M (of a total of US$2.1B) in debt were forgiven, the spin doctor said Guyana received a total of $906M (I am assuming it is in US dollars?) in Foreign Direct Investments between 1994 and 2007. On paper, it seemed attractive, but in reality, our economy actually has the potential to handle investments far in excess of $900 million, let alone over a 13-year period.

Here is something for the spin doctor to also ponder: in 2007, U.S-based Guyanese remitted almost US$450 million to Guyana, and while the figure might be slightly lower for 2008 because of the global recession, it is clear that if we were to use a conservative ball park figure of, say, US$300 million in (official and unofficial) remittances a year for the past 15 years, we’re looking at almost US$5B in remittances. That would dwarf the spin doctors’ boast of US$906 million in FDIs from ‘94 to ‘07. And what this tells us is that if this Government really had a vision for major, accelerated development based on foreign investments and not focusing mostly on debt relief, it could have used a menu of incentives to tap into the financial base of overseas Guyanese to invest in major developmental projects at home. FDIs do not have to be exclusively the domain of foreign-owned companies.

Third, contrary to the spin doctor, I never made a negative comment in my letter about the Berbice Bridge Project. All I said was that despite the President’s promise that CLICO (GY) depositors’ money (GY$6.4B) was safe, the Government actually failed to save the money because the Insurance Commissioner did not do her job in accordance with Sections 55 and 9 of the Insurance Act to save Guyanese from losing GY$6.4B when CLICO (GY) collapsed. However, based on ‘insider trading’, those persons with bridge bonds held by CLICO (GY) were able to secure their investments by having the New Building Society purchase the bonds from CLICO (GY) before the insurance firm collapsed, while other depositors were cleaned out and now have to live with promises from a politician. This is why Dr. Misir is dubbed the spin doctor, because while he accused me of being negative about the bridge, I was merely exposing the selfish and uncaring nature of this Government towards people who suffered immense financial loss.

If it takes a village to raise a child, then pity the village if the child grows up to become the village idiot to whom everyone looks for advice. Unless the spin doctor has some new material for me to work with, I have had it up to ‘here’ with his debt relief mantra! Debt relief is good but FDIs are infinitely better for all Guyanese!

Emile Mervin

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