Thievery and corruption was never this bad under the PNC

Nov 24, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The PNC/APNU and PPP are horrendous political calamities that befell this nation. Theirs is a legacy of corruption, thievery, wrongdoing, brutality, incompetence, arrogance, ignorance and mismanagement. There was thieving, looting, pocket-filling, banditry and rank corruption under the PNC, but was it ever this bad as it is under the PPP? No, it wasn’t. I’ll explain why.
Firstly, while the inclination, intent and desire to steal and corrupt was just as pervasive under the PNC as it is under the PPP and the failed system was just as accommodating and facilitating, the thieves under the PNC never had it so good as those criminals under the PPP. The size of the economy and the scale of revenues, loans and expenditure under the PNC were minuscule compared to the PPP.
The sheer size of the economy under the PPP dwarfs anything under the PNC. The PNC never handled the kind of money the PPP has handled, particularly during the last regime and the current one.
Secondly, GRA’s tax collection renders the PNC’s revenue collection into a joke. Hundreds of billions are collected in taxes every year. One can only guess what happens with that money.
Thirdly, the PPP got a markedly improved free market economy, started by Hoyte, and has built steady, but still subpar for Guyana, economic gains since then. This economic improvement translates to more revenues, more business activity and more wealth creation. This has further fed the corruption animal, which is now out of its cage and terrorizing the public.
Fourthly, government spending has massively increased under the PPP compared to the PNC despite the fact that the latter was socialist and the former operates a free market economy. These herculean budgets and staggering government spending end up in the hands of a few friends and cronies of the PPP by way of a corrupt and unfair contracting and tendering system.
It is one of the most heinous redistributions of wealth in this country, where taxes from all are put into the hands of a few. There is a class of people created by the PPP, about 1% of the population or around 7500 persons, who live better lives than the middle class in countries like USA, Canada and Germany.
Fifthly, we must examine the difference in the approach to crime and corruption under the PNC and PPP. Corruption was just as rampant under the PNC as it was under the PPP, but the opportunity to steal was less and on a smaller scale, the PNC refused to allow criminality to overcome the nation, because some within the PPP could profit from bribes from drug cartels or because some ignorantly believed drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises could benefit the economy.
The PNC could have done like the PPP and made Guyana a major cocaine transshipment point during the heydays of the cocaine cartels (1980s), which was when the PNC economy was at its absolute worst, but it didn’t. The rise in corruption under the PPP also occurred in tandem with the rise in criminality. Drug trafficking, smuggling, prostitution and other sicknesses existed under the PNC, but were crushed from every becoming anything more than marginal forces.
While the PNC encouraged politically-motivated criminals like the House of Israel, it refused to share its space with drug cartels and other socially destructive criminal forces. Crime and criminality has taken off under the PPP and shames the small time criminality under the PNC. Corruption had another source of income under the PPP from this increased criminality.
Sixthly, the PPP encouraged a plutocracy and oligarchy where a handful of persons were allowed to prosper at the expense of the vast underclass. This means an elite few have secured the majority of the spoils, something that occurred under the PNC to a far lesser extent.
Seventh, corruption was more diffuse under the PNC, with many corrupters sharing a smaller pie. Under the PPP, the bulk of what is stolen goes to a handful of individuals closely connected to the regime.
Eighth, the PPP has perfected the system of corruption by making it more mainstream, putting more assets for the taking, creating incredible schemes and making it easier to steal with impunity.
Ninth, while there was corruption under the PNC, Burnham and Hoyte never enabled corruption to attain the towering heights that it acquired under the PPP. There was an unspoken limit and the crooks within the PNC knew that limit. Corruption and skulduggery has been seen as a limitless exercise in the past decade of PPP rule.
Tenth, while both the PNC and PPP have failed to punish corrupt officials, this sickness we see where auditors who uncovered corruption are sanctioned and other evils would not have been tolerated by Burnham, and definitely not Hoyte.
The PNC were a band of thieves, but the PPP has made the PNC looters look like altar boys. The PNC didn’t have a lot to steal from. The PPP had a lot to steal from and they did take thieving to an entirely new level where these guys just will not stop. It seems like this is now a competition.
The PNC created a cesspool where corruption and wrongdoing is a cultural, social, psychological and societal fixture and the PPP has taken it into the stratosphere. Many engaged in corruption under the PNC because of basic survival. They took enough to provide just minimally for their families. Today, the stealing is to buy fancy boats, foreign homes in the USA, to stuff bank accounts in the Caymans and to build leisure quarters that are bigger than the homes of the majority of the poor citizens of this country.
Today, even when there is significantly better pay for officials, as shown by those outrageous salaries the PPP pays its cronies (some at OP), the scourge is killing everything in its sight. It is like a bandit kicking down your door and instead of roughing you up after taking a few things, emptying your entire home and then killing you in cold blood.
There is no relief for the working class under the PPP, just as there wasn’t any under the PNC. The PNC and PPP have made criminals out of some Guyanese. They have pushed some Guyanese to thieving, corrupting, defrauding and cheating in order to survive. This is no kind of existence for any people or civilization. Corruption was never this bad under the PNC for the reasons I outlined above. If the PNC ever returns to power, it will be corrupt. The question is whether it will ever be as corrupt as the PPP.
M. Maxwell

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