Granger is no different from Jagdeo and Ramotar

May 17, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I respond to a letter under the caption, “Mr. Granger underestimates the importance of State-owned businesses”, dated 13th. May 2011. I wish to state that Mr. David Granger, et al. have no economic programme outside of the neo-liberal free-market system.
They will have to go begging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for loans, which will drive us into further poverty, worst than we see today, under this present regime.
What surprises me is that Tacuma Ogunseye of the Working Peoples Alliance and others have also implicitly endorsed Mr. Granger and it now seems that race is everything!
They also expressed sycophantic views about Western democracy, which openly supports very repressive dictatorships currently in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where they brutally murder people, who protest against, their minority rule. There is no class content in Granger policies, let see it?
A certain section of the political elite in Guyana wants an end to the rule of the PPP, but Walter Rodney’s ideas and vision have been abandoned by yesterday’s radicals (Granger is a member of the Afro creole national bourgeoisie, so no surprise).
What frightens most of us is the inexperience of Mr. Granger in governing a country (not an army) and his open support for the market economy. What is the difference between his economic policies that he intends to pursue if he gets into office and that of the current rulers? Is he willing to debate them? Is he a democrat, as he pretends, when he walks around with the colour of the army?
I am firmly convinced that an alliance will be made between the PPP and the PNCR, if neither of them gets a majority at the upcoming polls.
In this regard, my Workers-Farmers Alliance position is valid and the Trade Union and farmer organisations and all working people of Guyana will need to be ever vigilant.
I remember these words from the Jamaican London-based poet, Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poems: “The Poor and The Dispossessed Can’t Get No Rest”.
It is ironical that at this historical moment, when there is an opportunity to leave the discredited Burnham-Hoyte and Jagdeo-Ramotar-PPP legacies behind and stroll boldly forward along a new historical path, the progressive ideas and policies will be abandoned for a well-worn, long discredited, Washington Consensus road of poverty and ‘under-development”.
I expect Granger’s economic advisers have all willingly digested the prevailing economic model – it was what they were following so eagerly in Egypt that have caused the revolution there and the final incarceration of Hosni Mubarak, the dictator! That is true of all the countries in the Middle East.
Guyana cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. Our economic policies must be discussed openly with all our people.
We need a bottom-up approach, not a top down one as Mr. Granger and others are promoting. Leaders will rise up from below; make no mistake, Mr. Granger.
My criticisms of David Granger, initially, focused on his knowledge and level of involvement of the rigging of elections in Guyana and the role of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) in the rigging processes. But I did raise, also, the issue of his support for the “Washington Consensus policies”, but he has not, until today revealed his true colours.
He has now told us about the main thrust of his proposed economic programme, which will be a disaster to the working people of our country.
When asked on Channel 9 television how he would deal with Labour relations issues in Guyana, if he were to become the President, he said that he will refer the matter to his Minister of Labour.
Mr. Granger, like the rulers in the current regime, treats the workers and working people with contempt. He seems to think, like others, that capital alone produces wealth, but he is totally misguided.
Wealth is produced by workers and ordinary working people. We need a tri-sector economic approach to resolve our economic and social problems, where all of our people will be involved in the production process and share, equally, in the dividends that follow.
The problem with Mr. Granger is – we don’t know him and cant trust him, can we, really? Granger needs to know that de-nationalisation (sell off of our national assets) is not the answer to our economic and social problems.
In fact the capitalist-run government in the United Kingdom took over privately-owned banks that were going bankrupt.
In other words, the taxpayers pay for the gross incompetence of the capitalist when they fail; it is never the other way round. The capitalist can sack workers – as they please and the workers have no redress. Look at the situation in the Bauxite industry and the threat of de-recognise of the sugar workers Union, GAWU.
So even under a capitalist-run government, we experience the taking over of privately-owned businesses, when they no longer function. Burnham took over the privately-owned companies because the country’s economy was in very serious crisis.
Had he taken over 50 percent of the shares, we would not have found ourselves in a major crisis. The PPP fatally supported Burnham’s politics and state-owned properties became the personal dictate of the Kabaka (Burnham).
Mr. Granger’s concern about the plight and marginalsation of the Afro-Guyanese poor must be taken seriously by all of us, but their living conditions will not be better under the “Washington Consensus” policies that he wants to promote. In fact the poor – of all races – will get poorer.
There will be further starvation on the streets of Georgetown.
This point was eloquently made by Mr. Norris Witter, President of the TUC, during his powerful speech at the last May Day rally – to the annoyance of the PNC elements who were gazing in the front row seats at the rally.
Granger’s pronouncement has raised the question again about capitalism versus socialism and one must conclude that Guyana was never a socialist country, under the PNC or the PPP.
Both administrations struggled for economic reforms that benefited the poorer section of our society at differing levels.
Why Mr. Granger thinks that following a programme that favours – big business or the business class – that he will be able to make fundamental changes in our country? Is he not deluding himself? We must stand up strongly against his policies.
The PPP has been following a capitalist path of economic development, which was geared primarily to benefit their families, close friends of the regime and highly corrupt -young Indian exploiters.
Co-operatives that were supposed to be the driving force for the elimination of poverty in Guyana, under the Burnham regime, haave no real place under this government. We cannot leave politics to the upcoming politicians. Workers and farmers must have a meaningful say in the future running of our country.
Jinnah Rahman

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