Nightmares in a donkey cart economy

Jul 28, 2011 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
A blogger responded to my letter “Ramotar can’t handle this worsening cost of living issue” (KN, July 26, 2011) with the suggestion that if the ‘brilliant’ Bharrat Jagdeo (and by extension Finance Minister, Ashni Singh) failed to tame the inflation and cost of living monster the PPP has created then no one else from another party can.
This blogger appears to be labouring under the assumption that Bharrat Jagdeo and Ashni Singh are quality economic managers. I’ve never heard a healthier dose of nonsense. The legitimate/legal economy has stunk and continues to stink under the management of these two gentlemen.
These men are not the benchmark for quality economic management. They have made a mess. Collecting more taxes to watch it wasted, corrupted and squandered through a corrupt public tendering and contracting system, as well as an incompetent government bureaucracy, is not the type of economic management a country desperate for a break needs.
Having an economy fuelled by illegal activity such as drug trafficking is not either, nor is an economy sustained on remittances and handouts from overseas Guyanese.
Spending huge sums of taxpayers’ money like porkknockers gone wild on Lombard Street to look good and to boast of empty sugar factories that keep breaking down, floating wharves and washed-away roads is not sound economic management. It is a backward attempt to buy votes.
All this reckless spending has overheated the economy, pushed inflation upwards, and sent cost of living to the high heavens. Government is the biggest spender in this country. They bear the most blame for driving cost of living into the stratosphere. No quality legitimate jobs from non-illegal industries. Key areas of the economy have fallen apart. Ask Donald Ramotar what happened to sugar.
Incomes cannot rise in this quicksand. They must fall. And fell they did under continued economic mismanagement. There has been no economic diversification except into drug trafficking, arms smuggling, fuel smuggling and other illicit areas. Business has boomed in these areas.
So jobs are disappearing. Even worse, better paying jobs have never appeared. Add the rising cost of all the foreign goods we like to consume. Add the markups and profits for those who import them. Other nations are galloping, creating good jobs for their people. We are running a donkey cart economy.
Those people are now spending their new-found wealth. Their demand is driving prices up. We who have watched our incomes choked and robbed by inflation under Jagdeo and Singh can’t afford to pay for these items.
When goods get to Guyana, the few rich beneficiaries of the past 19 years can set the prices. The poor masses then are asked to pay prices which are out of reach. This is the inequality created by the economic mismanagement.
To top things off, the brilliant team of Jagdeo and Singh fuelled a housing boom by offering low interest sweetheart deals to many already buckling under the cost of living stress created by the PPP. Many had dreams of becoming real estate geniuses netting cool multi-million-dollar paydays. So people borrowed. Then construction labour and material costs rapidly escalated while salaries barely rose. Remittances slowed with the worldwide recession. Those who scraped savings together over a lifetime started dipping into that nest egg. All this time, the economic dynamite of Jagdeo and Singh kept selling the dream of materialism, consumerism and over-consumption.
Many Guyanese led down this economic bubble path are banding their bellies now. They are living in brand new homes in flooded housing schemes with one access road, and starving themselves or staying up at night worrying about that coming GPL bill. When interest rates start climbing on their mortgages, they will be in serious pain. To make matters worse, we are looking at more than a billion US dollars owed to foreign banks and agencies. Just as fast as they were writing off debt, Messrs Jagdeo and Singh were borrowing. The Guyanese people will have to repay. It is as if the ridiculous tax burden isn’t enough. 33.3% income tax plus 16% VAT plus all the other taxes and corruption taxes you must pay.
The PPP has mismanaged this economy. So when this blogger asks who should manage, the response should be exactly as that of the American people when asked the same question of George Bush: anyone but Bush. The beauty of their democracy is that they may also say in 2012: anyone but Obama too.
I have read the AFC’s manifesto (they just don’t give up asking you to read it) and it seems replete with better ideas for fixing this economic mess than the current stay-the-course strategy of the PPP. If Donald Ramotar wins the presidency and stays the course, we will be heading off-course. The problem is that Donald Ramotar does not strike me as the kind of guy who even knows where to begin to change course.
With inflation wiping out legitimate income increases in the past five years, Donald Ramotar says he will not do things very differently if elected. Watch out people of Guyana. The Donald will have many financially ducking. Bharrat Jagdeo and Ashni Singh have proven themselves average economic managers despite their qualifications. Their collective failure on the economy is clear. But this guy Donald is giving me nightmares.
M. Maxwell

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