Prosperity for a few on the backs of all is what Hydar Ally and the PPP celebrate

Apr 13, 2014 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Hydar Ally’s article titled “The rising tide of prosperity” (KN, Apr 12, 2014) was standard PPP propaganda dancing lewdly in front of us and telling us it is a modest creature. The kangaroo tendency of the PPP to jump backward into the past when confronted by its shortcomings and atrocities of the present is now legendary.
Hydar Ally speaks of negative economic growth under the PNC. But Hydar Ally will not tell us of the shoddy and pitiful economic performance of the PPP in an era of unrestrained free market growth from the 1990s to present. Cheddi Jagan oversaw the following GDP growth rates from 1993 to 1996 inclusive: 1993: 8.2%, 1994: 8.5%, 1995: 5% and 1996: 7.9%. Janet Jagan achieved annual GDP growth as follows from 1997 to 1999: 1997: 6.2%, 1998: -1.7% and 1999: 3%. Mr Jagdeo was trained as an economist, yet Guyana under Jagdeo achieved the following yearly GDP growth rates from 2000 to 2011 inclusive: 2000: -1.4%, 2001: 2.2%, 2002: 1.1%, 2003: -1%, 2004: 3.3%, 2005: -2%, 2006: 5.1%, 2007: -3.6%, 2008: 2%, 2009: 3.3%, 2010: 4.4% and 2011: 5.4%. Donald Ramotar had economic growth of 4.8% in 2012 and 5.2% in 2013. That is 73.1% total annualized GDP growth over 21 years or growth or 3.48% per annum for the past 21 years. The entire world economy grew by 3.5% annually over this time period. So much for this pathetic economic charade the shallow comrades at Freedom House are crowing over!
That is lacklustre economic growth by any stretch of the imagination and certainly when one considers Guyana as one of the most blessed nations in terms of resources per capita. That is a shameful performance for a country with Guyana’s distinct advantages of (1) small population (2) high debt writeoffs (3) significant per capita natural resource allocation (4) English speaking population (5) cheap labour (6) close proximity to Latin American, Brazilian, South American and North American markets and (7) significant remittance inflows. We missed out on the commodity booms and instead cocaine became our strongest export in the past 20 years. Massive countries devastated by the fall of communism like China and Russia with hundreds of millions and over a billion in populations were able to lift their people out of poverty yet the economic charlatans at Freedom House were able to deliver a pathetic 3.48% annual GDP growth over 21 years.
Now that we know the PPP’s dismal economic performance in relation to the rest of the world, we must consider the type of economy inherited by the PPP. The PPP operates Hoyte’s economy without any significant alterations over the past 20 years. Hoyte handed the PPP an economy that grew by 6.026% and 7.758% in 1991 and 1992 respectively. The PPP got a booming economy from the PNC, ready for takeoff in a free market system. The economy has sputtered since. The PPP’s sordid claim to fame as an economic rejuvenator is bogus. Its lifelong excuse of inheriting a broken economy from the PNC does not fly anymore. The following countries all had decrepit socialist and communist economies – USSR, China, India, Vietnam, Albania, Angola, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Cambodia, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, former Yugoslavia republics, Ukraine, Belarus, Algeria, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Seychelles and Suriname- and they have all outperformed the PPP’s Guyana.
The other issue with Ally’s propaganda is prosperity for whom: the fat cat contract worker friends of the PPP like some sitting at OP and collecting inflated salaries to write mindless drivel to the nation’s independent newspapers or the lean sugar workers trying to stay afloat financially? Is it prosperity for the lucky few who get government contracts or the unlucky not so few who have to make out with the contract of indenture the PPP has saddled them with? Prosperity for the Pradoville mansion builders or the Plastic City shantytown residents?
Or is it prosperity for the drug dealers, gun runners, contraband traders, fuel smugglers, pimps and money launderers versus prosperity for the decent citizen struggling to find his or her daily bread. Prosperity by inequality, by taking taxes and VAT collected from all including the poor and giving it to a few in choice contracts is not prosperity. Nor is allowing drug kingpins to flourish in prosperity.
The GDP per capita does not reflect the dangerous and crippling repercussions of the PPP’s wrongdoing, marginalization and cronyism. It does not show the chasms and gulfs between the haves and the have-nots.
The PPP have glorified the demise of the working class people. And these rogues still have the temerity to keep Cheddi Jagan’s photograph adorning their Freedom House shrine.
M. Maxwell

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