The perplexing politics of the PPP: A nation’s future postponed…Again!

Jun 26, 2010 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
This is my second and final letter in response to Sir Ronald Sanders’ double-installment: “The Politics of Leadership: Guyana and its Presidency,” (Kaieteur News, June 13 and 20). Let me quickly speak to Sir Ronald’s observation in the tail end of his June 13 piece: “The (next) President will also inherit from Bharrat Jagdeo’s stewardship a country whose economic situation and social services are better than they have been for three decades. Housing, medical facilities and education have all dramatically improved under Jagdeo, as has its infrastructural development particularly water distribution.
“An economic basket case for 25 years since 1976, Guyana has moved from being a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HPIC) with little or no economic growth to steady growth today. In 2009, Guyana recorded 3.3 per cent growth while the majority of its CARICOM neighbours showed negative growth; public debt fell from 93.1 percent of GDP as of end-2006 to 56.8 percent of GDP in 2009. The next President’s task will be build on this legacy and to address with urgency the social and economic inequities that can easily reverse the progress that has been painfully made.”
First of all, it is unfair to credit President Jagdeo for his ‘stewardship’ of the country’s economic situation and social services, which Sir Ronald feels are ‘better than they have been for three decades’, without mentioning the overarching ‘external factors and forces’ which also played an equally, if not greater role, to this end. Much like the government loves to brag about championing the return of democracy in 1992 without recognizing the overarching role of former US President, Mr. James Carter, the PPP still does not acknowledge the role of foreign loans and grants, foreign remittances and the laundering of money (obtained from illicit activities conducted by Guyanese on foreign shores) in buoying the Guyana economy.
Eliminate those ‘external factors and forces’ and the PPP and its government will have nothing major to brag and boast about, and Sir Ronald will be forced to rephrase his words to reflect a different reality. Imagine he wrote that ‘in 2009, Guyana recorded 3.3 per cent growth while the majority of its CARICOM neighbours showed negative growth, blah, blah, blah…’ If he checked the Bank of Guyana’s stats sheets for the 1990s he will find that Guyana recorded 7 per cent growth because of the Desmond Hoyte Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) thus allowing the PPP in 1992 to inherit an economy on the rebound.
Cheddi Jagan’s original plan before 1992 was to take Guyana out of the capitalist system, renege on the debt payments and take Guyana into the socialist system, but the socialist system collapsed with the USSR and so he was forced to settle for continuing the Hoyte ERP while working on reducing the foreign debt. Shockingly, the PPP definitely did not come back to power with a viable medium-to-long term major economic plan through income generating Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), and despite working with the World Bank to pay back the foreign debt incurred by the PNC regime, economic growth dipped as the 90s waned before hitting the negative territory and then slightly rebounding and holding steady under 5 per cent in the last decade or so.
This is year 18 for the PPP in power and beside the now brain dead Low Carbon Development Strategy, which the President hopes will rise up and walk, the government continues to take fresh loans for infrastructural works, and the loans must be repaid by the people via taxes. Taxes, by the way, constituted the bulk of the government’s income for 2009, and for a country that barely produces enough to sell on the world market, what exactly did the government tax besides wages and salaries? Imported consumer goods? Guyana is now more a consumer-based than production-based country, with foreign remittances mixing with laundered money to help pay for consumer goods and services. Banks are loaded with cash, but where did all of that cash come from? Certainly not employees saving for some later plans.
Take away remittances and money laundering and there will be rioting in Guyana because wages and salaries alone can’t pay the bills. No wonder the US State Department long concluded that the informal economy is a major part of the formal economy, and what that basically means is that the haphazard manner in which the PPP selected Mr. Jagdeo for the presidency explains the pathetic and mediocre results that persons like Sir Ronald can sit and write opinion pieces applauding.
Where is Sir Ronald’s call for the PPP and its government to account for failing to deliver a far better quality of life for a nation of only 700,000 Guyanese so they would want to stay in Guyana or return from overseas rather than run or stay overseas?
Sir Ronald’s comparative synopsis of Guyana’s economic growth in 2009 being better than that of its CARICOM neighbours is also unfair, because Guyana was once a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC), indicative of Guyana’s economic standing compared with its neighbours, so that when one talks of Guyana’s economic growth, one has to recognise Guyana is coming from behind or from a lower level on the economic scale.
In addition, while many of Guyana’s CARICOM neighbours don’t have the abundance of resources we have, their economic and social infrastructure appears solidly stronger.
Little Barbados, which does not have a quarter of our natural resources and potential, has an economy that is much stronger than ours. It all comes down to visionary leadership and wise management and not just resources, because Guyana has the resources but not the right leader or management team.
I challenge Sir Ronald to tell me, with Guyana recording a 3.3 per cent growth while other CARICOM countries recorded negative growth in 2009, why thousands of Barbadians, Trinidadians, Jamaicans, Antiguans, St. Lucians, and other CARICOM nationals are not flocking to Guyana. Tell me why in excess of 30,000 Guyanese left big and spacious Guyana and now call tiny Barbados home.
Tell me why the Ronald Sanders, Shridath Ramphals and Rickey Singhs are not leaving their adopted countries and running back home to bask in the economic recovery and better social services being obtained under President Jagdeo. If the foregoing is not enough of an indictment of the failed policies and programmes of the Guyana Government in the last 18 years, then tell me what is.
While everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but not his or her own facts, it is possible we can play fast and loose with facts so they serve our purposes and opinions. And despite all the ‘figures’ and ‘facts’ being thrown around about growth and improved social services, there are other ‘facts’ and ‘factors’ that cannot be ignored if we want to be fair and balanced in our assessments and analyses. Example, with all the ‘evidence’ of infrastructural works presented, Guyana continues to grapple with decades-old potable and electricity supply problems, dysfunctional sewage and drainage systems, inadequate roads to handle the surge in imported vehicles, and major questions about the value for money projects awarded by the state to private contractors.
Did Sir Ronald completely ignore these facts and factors and join the political parrots who squawk loudly that as long as there are signs of ‘infrastructural works’, then there is progress and we should blithely ignore the endemic corruption in government or the need for a viable, phased economic plan for accelerated development?
Since it has been proven that Guyana’s economy is capable of 7 per cent growth, we cannot go on taking foreign loans and grants to improve our social services and then back-pat ourselves (in this case, the President).
We have to move past relying on foreign loans and grants, or even foreign remittances, money laundering businesses and mediocrity and get into the business of constructively exploiting our natural resources to develop or grow through incentive-laden investments, leading to job creation and income generation. We need a real time political visionary not a political vaudeville.
I am challenging Sir Ronald for once to think outside his box for a moment, because while he conveys the impression that Guyana is doing better now than 25 years ago, his analysis failed to reflect where Guyana should have been 18 years after the PPP returned to power given the nation’s untapped potential, and amidst the much heralded change the PPP promised in 1992. The same way he is deafeningly silent today as a communicator, commentator and diplomat about the wrongs and failings of the Jagdeo administration was the same way he was deafeningly silent as General Manager of the Guyana Broadcasting Service about the wrongs and failings of the Burnham administration.
Not a word about the Jagdeo administration’s disregard for the rule of law and the courts, the people’s rights, the issue of state torture, endemic corruption in government, the 2002-2004 crime spree, the Phantom Squad extra-judicial killings, the flourishing drug trade, blatant discrimination, etc.. It is unfair, if not hypocritical, to laud the government for social services projects, while being silent on its myriad wrongs that point to a deeply troubling trend eerily reminiscent of the Burnham era.
Back in the 1950s, the PPP’s communist stance resulted in its sidelining by powerful Western forces that engineered the ‘election’ of a political opportunist (Forbes Burnham) who fared no better than his predecessor (Cheddi Jagan) when he embraced the communist ideology and turned his back on the people who made his rise to power possible. Guyana was held back from advancing.
In the 1990s, the PPP returned to power and, because it failed to take a basic commonsense stance in governing, Guyana is being held back again from advancing at a pace commensurate with its potential.
The caption of my response to Sir Ronald’s caption, therefore, is best summed up thusly: “The Perplexing Politics of the PPP: A Nation’s Future Postponed…Again!”
Emile Mervin

---

---