The PNC did not embrace the blatant massive corruption that exists today

Nov 04, 2013 Letters

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Dear Editor,
We continue to be extremely disappointed by the rabid and in some cases untrue statements coming from the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh. In his latest release, he stated “If we examine the facts, during the 1970s and most of the 1980s, the PNC destroyed and decimated Guyana’s private sector.
They expropriated the private sector’s assets, intimidated and effectively banished the entrepreneurial class, and completely destroyed the environment for doing business. Their attitude today reveals that, although they are attempting to hide behind the thin veil of a new name, their hostility towards the private sector is much the same, and they remain diametrically opposed to private sector led development.”
For the Minister to say that the PNC had decimated the private sector is stretching the truth and he ought to know better. We will not allow the minister or anyone else in the PPP to distort the record of the PNC in order to score cheap political points or to spread their barefaced propaganda to distract the nation from the massive corruption that is taking place daily in every government department and high crime that they are unable to solve.
We would like to inform the minister that the PNC did not embrace the blatant massive corruption that exists today in every level of the PPP government and no minister in the PNC government has built mansions like those in Pradoville one and two. The PNC under the late President Forbes Burnham did not approve a pension of $3 million per month and an unlimited number of security and other personnel for a President after he demits office. The PNC did not squander US$230 million of the taxpayers’ money on the white elephant sugar factory at Skeldon and billions more on the idle Enmore sugar packaging plant and on the unfinished Marriott Hotel and the dried up Amalia Falls. The PNC did not give contracts to friends and relatives to build or paved roads that washed away three weeks after construction or sold state lands and properties to friends for a far cheaper price than the market value. In building the Demerara Bridge, the PNC put the interest of the people first by charging them the cheapest toll possible whereas, the PPP built the Berbice Bridge and put their friends first by allowing them to reap hundreds of millions in financial profits and not the people who have to pay the highest toll in the world to cross the bridge. This is more than enough evidence that the PPP has abandoned the poor and the working class in Guyana for their wealthy friends.
Furthermore, it was the PNC Government and in particular Mr. Carl Greenidge and President Hoyte who saved this country’s economy under the Economic Recovery Program (ERP). The foundation for the period of continued growth under Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Dr Asgar Ally was laid by Carl Greenidge in 1989 which saw growth in GDP under a PNC Government in 1991 and 1992 of 6 percent and 7.8 percent respectively. In terms of history, the Minister of Finance in his selective mind has ignored these solid achievements of the PNC by using the PPP play book to spread propaganda.
We want Dr. Singh to know that these high growth rates did not happen by accident or not by state intervention but by an active buy-in from the respectable private sector which invested billions into the Guyanese economy under the post pro-private sector Government ever in the history of Guyana – the Hoyte Government.
But Dr Singh quite skillfully chooses not to remember these facts in his rabid propaganda campaign.  Dr. Singh also chooses not to remember that as a result of the solid economic work of Carl Greenidge, Dr. Jagan’s Government saw an average growth in the economy between 1993-1997 of 7.4 percent. Dr. Singh and the twisted minds in the PPP are selective in what they want the people to know about the PNC achievements, but facts are facts and the truth must be revealed to the public, hence the debunking of the PPP propaganda, distortions and untruths.
These are the hard facts, but as every day goes by, Dr. Singh and others in the corrupt PPP regime continue to ignore the truth as they clothe themselves in the illusionary world of political deception and subterfuge, just like how they believe there is no corruption and no conflict of interest between the Office of the Minister of Finance and the Audit Office, even though one is the spouse of the other.
It is quite sad that supposedly ministers who are sworn to uphold the constitution and tell the truth can reduce themselves to such fabrication and “mud marching” politics in the 21st century.
Dr. Asquith Rose and Chandra Deollal, Esq.

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