The burden of proof

May 09, 2014 News

---

 

Persons are questioning the growth rate of Guyana’s economy but are providing no statistical evidence to support their contention that the official growth rate is fudged.
If you are questioning the growth rate of the economy, then the onus is on you to show that the official growth rate does not add up. The burden of proof remains on those who question the growth rate. It is those individuals who have made accusations of empirical fudging to provide their calculations to show that the GDP did not increase to the extent that the government says it did. It is not for the government to prove its critics case; it is for critics to justify their contention that the numbers are fudged.
It is really presumptions for someone to say to the government that your growth numbers are wrong and then demand the government to prove that it is not wrong. That would be like charging a man for a crime and then asking him to prove his innocence.
The presumption of innocence does not mean that those presumed innocent must prove they are innocent. It means the converse: that the burden of proof rests with the prosecuting authorities to show that the person charged is indeed guilty.
It is not going to be easy for any government these days to fudge growth rates. There are numerous international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which scrupulously monitors growth rates around the world. Any fudging is bound to be detected and exposed. With the sort of scrutiny that is undertaken of global economic trends, it is next to impossible for growth rates to be fudged and not detected. In fact the growth rates that have been achieved by Guyana are consistent with the projections of these international organizations.
Obviously there is a temptation to discredit Guyana’s growth rates. These growth rates defy the criticism that Guyana’s economy is going downhill and that things are pretty gloomy in Guyana. There is a disconnection between propaganda and reality.
Guyana’s economic performance has been nothing short of remarkable over the last eight years. Things will get better. Guyana will achieve ten years of unbroken economic growth. And this achievement will create greater anxieties and fears amongst those who wish to project the government as being hopelessly incompetent.
Well, if the PPPC government is being deemed incompetent, how does one describe the state of the government twenty-five years ago? Twenty-five years ago, the economy was in real problems and these problems brought real hardships to the Guyanese people. It is a narrative that some people wish to erase.
The year 1989 was a real horror story for Guyana. The year started with a total shutdown of the electricity system in Georgetown. This shutdown affected the supply of water. The scenes were unbelievable. Long lines of persons with buckets in their hands trekked to the Shelter Belt hoping to get water for use in their homes.
Persons were seen waiting hours in line just to get a few buckets of water. Things got chaotic at one stage. The horse guards had to be called out to restore order. Imagine a whole city without water.
The problems did not abate. The electricity supply got worse later in the year and the problems mounted in the economy.
The country entered into a very painful structural adjustment programme that saw a high attrition rate in the public sector. Some workers decided that despite their desperation it made no sense to travel to work. If you lived a fair distance away from your workplace it made no sense working, because when you deducted the increased transportation fares, the balance was not enough to feed you. A great many young girls from the countryside simply left their jobs in the city. It could not be feasible for them to work.
Incidentally, the next year the economy recorded spectacular economic growth. No one said then that the numbers were fudged. There were other arguments made about those growth rates. It was said for example that since a key aspect of the adjustment process was the incorporation of the parallel economy, the growth between 1990 and 1992 represented this incorporation.
No one spoke about numbers being fudged. Instead they spoke about causes of the growth and how illusory these could be. This is perhaps a better approach for the critics of the PPPC to take today rather than attempting to question the growth rates.
It is much better today to do like what the then opposition did in 1990. It is much better to question the sources of the growth and point to possible bubbles in today’s growth rate; bubbles that will eventually burst. It is equally possible to question how this growth had impacted on the lives of the ordinary man. In other words make a case as to the sources of today’s growth and who benefits.
Critics of the PPPC would be on much stronger ground if they take these angles rather than making futile attempts to discredit Guyana’s economic growth rate over the past year.

---

---