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Tell a lie often enough and it will be believed

Jul 20, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

Tell a lie often enough and it will be believed. This is the hope of one Ms. Elizabeth Daly, executive member of the Ghost-writers Club (GC) headquartered at the Guyana Chronicle (GC), in her last missive (Kaieteur News July 16th & GC July 17th) dealing with remittances (the transfer of money by a foreign worker to his home country).

Ms. Daly, can you please be as kind to quote the part in my writing where I carped against remittances? This is what I did say: “I am most certainly not knocking remittances, nor the potential to further our development, and I commend both Ms James and Dr Khemraj for presenting ideas on harnessing them.” I went on to qualify my support by stating that this was a pivotal issue for the AFC more than four years ago (and still is today). Only now certain quarters, Ms. Daly included, are waking up to the potential of remittances. These people are loudly thumping their chests as if remittances represent an outstanding achievement on their part, when others long ago urged remittances to be harnessed to further our growth, while addressing other economic deficiencies at the same time (which by the way was the point of my letter).

Ms. Daly loves to repeat her little mantra Dr. Khemraj is an alleged economist, and pontificates as if she is qualified (maybe with an MBA?). However Ms. Daly, I must point out that the multiplier effect cannot be promoted as if it is a political cause. The multiplier is the number of times new investment spending will be re-spent to produce a certain amount of new income and it is dependent on various economic factors. If a high percentage of remittances leaks (gushes in our case) back out of Guyana toward imports of consumer goods, fuel and lubricants, then the multiplier will be small or non-existent. That these imports are high is factual, as supported by Government statistics. Can you argue otherwise Ms. Daly? If so, can you do this in a sensible manner without resorting to your usual rice-eater/common mongrel attack?

If you are inclined to reply with substance and not fluff, then please also address the issue of the continual loss of human capital (which is the stock of skills and knowledge than can be used to produce economic value) due to migration. This loss will no doubt further diminish the multiplier.

Now Ms. Daly, I see you go back repeating yourself on the macroeconomic stability issue again (Kaieteur News 17th July). I understand what you are doing – you believe by repetition what you are saying will stick in the minds of your readers (tell a lie often enough…). Unfortunately Ms. Daly, your readers are not that mindless. I pointed out that macroeconomic stability was obtained in Guyana since 1991/92 (Kaieteur News July 7th) therefore the stepping stone you speak of is 18 years old, and begs the question of why we are still at that point. Secondly, Dr. Khemraj (SN Column 15th July), using figures from the Bank of Guyana showed that our current account deficit (when a country spends more on items from abroad than it earns from the sale of items) has on average, been widening since 1996 to an alarmingly high 26% in 2008. Therefore Guyana’s macroeconomic fundamentals are not as sound as Ms. Daly is trying to make them out to be. Can you answer these points Ms. Daly?

By the way Ms. Daly, since you are not a serious character (until proven otherwise), I had asked for Dr. Prem Misir’s take on Guyana’s economic specifics as pointed out by Dr. Khemraj, and not you, so please, stap gotayin’ de same ole story (stop repeating yourself senselessly). However, as fast as you repeat yourself, Ms. Daly (or any of your GC-mates), someone will answer – so let us see how long you can keep this up.

Gerhard Ramsaroop

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