Sam Hinds accused of insulting the Guyanese people

Jan 09, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Former Prime Minister Samuel Hinds (letter, Guyana Chronicle, 2 January 2016) claim that the “ PU/NICIL has been good for people and country”. Nothing in his letter proves this to be so. Mr. Hinds and the PPP have been challenging Guyanese who criticized them to provide ‘data and scientific analysis’ in support of their criticisms, yet he did not include one iota of data and scientific analysis to support his claim. The problem he presents has many faces.
First, Guyanese are in no position to independently evaluate the activities and results of the PU/NICIL. The reason is obvious. The government that Mr. Hinds served, as one of its leaders, has not maintained or developed systematic governmental organizational arrangements for the systematic collection and regular publication of information about government activities, accessible to Guyanese, which were done in their name. The question is where is the information which Guyanese must use to independently assess Mr. Hinds’ claims?  In the absence of this Guyanese must presumably accept the mere words in Mr. Hinds’ letter. Not surprising at all, because this is the level of disrespect which Mr. Hinds and the PPP have for the intelligence of the people of Guyana.
Second, in order to independently assess the claim made by Mr. Hinds, at minimum, Guyanese would need to be able to compare the starting benchmarks of the privatization programme, against subsequent historical records, up to say the end of 2014. Since 80 % percent of the economy was owned and controlled by the state of Guyana at the time of establishment of the PU /NICIL what does this mean in terms of the following (data broken down by economic sectors would be most valuable);
• the total net value of all the assets owned and controlled by the state;
• the share of Gross Domestic Product and National Income arising from government’s 80% share in the economy; and
• employment, exports, etc. relating to the 80% government share in the economy?
We can then compare these starting positions, annually, with what has happened since. We can compare this information with data on the changes, and the link of these changes to the economic and social improvements in the lives of Guyanese, who must first understand for example;
• which assets were completely divested into private hands, which assets were partially sold,  and  the interest which the state has in other income bearing entities in the economy ( e.g. majority private enterprises in which the state hold shares);
• the revenues from these various activities and what was done with these monies: e.g how much was transferred to the Consolidated Fund, to other government departments, to projects or to other uses;
• which assets are still held by the state?
What percentage of the Guyanese population, for example, are shareholders in divested companies, and how is this broken down among the various ethnic groups (the sovereign)? What is the level of employment of Guyanese citizens in the divested properties compared to the period before they were sold? This would provide some indication of the amount of income which households continued to earn from divested properties. Since the assets, their use and the activities undertaken were for the most part (last 23 years) in the hands of PPP administrations then it is the PPP, not the citizens, which must produce this kind of data and demonstrate what was “ …good for people and country”. What does good mean anyway?
Third, the foregoing is only part of the story. There are other crucial elements of accounting and accountability. For example, one issue is the allegation that some assets, such as the Sanata Complex, was sold at several millions below market value to Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop. This would raise serious questions as to who PU/NICIL was ‘ good for’, since citizens may have been cheated out of significant sums of money that could have gone into improving the scientific and technological capacity and capabilities of  Guyana,  and health, education, infrastructure, sanitation etc.
Fourth is the overall vexed question of accountability. Article 9 of Chapter II of the Constitution of Guyana declares that “Sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it through their representatives and the democratic organs established by or under this Constitution”. We remain dazed at the legal capacity of NICIL and the power of Mr. Brassington, in circumstances where the vast proportion of the economy effectively fell under the control of NICIL. This is not a simple matter. Nothing can describe this act of recklessness. Small wonder therefore that Guyanese don’t know what was done in their name. NICIL is a law unto itself. The PPP not only claimed, it acted on the claim that the people’s representatives (the Parliament) cannot compel NICIL to report to it.
Ivor Carryl

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