THE VOICE OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS…How much worse can it get?

Sep 07, 2016 News

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By Sase Singh

INTRODUCTION
An economy is about people, it is not some abstract concept in the sky. In the impartial court of conscience,

politicians are elected by the people as temporary custodians of an economy to execute a clear mandate, one of which is growing the economy for all. But clearly, this bit of wisdom continues to evade the policy makers in the Granger administration.
All I have been hearing from our Ministers of Government is more lame excuses of why the path to the “good life” has to be deferred. The latest one is that the police cannot get a salary increase, but they must be expected to curb their enthusiasm to peddle their corruption. This phenomenon of “collective executive failure” need not be, but it is alive and kicking in 2016.
The “Norton BondGate Scandal” is another episode in this selfish form of politics that has been practiced in Guyana for years, only this time those who were calling for it to end before May 2015, are now the expert practitioners of this art form of wholesale squandermania, and impotent policy-making.
What a shame that so much hope was vanquished by so few, so quickly! The only outcome from this selfish path is economic implosion and political self-destruction.
CONSUMER SPENDING CONTINUES TO PLUMMET
Domestic consumer spending for the first six months of 2016 has declined, and this position is being supported by all the economic proxies that contribute to the measurement of consumer spending.
First and foremost let us observe income for the workers.
Income drives consumer spending which positively stimulates the economy. That’s why we in the analyst community pay so much attention to this indicator. If we continue to starve the workers, as is being transmitted by the Coalition and the GPSU leadership, with their unnecessary Commissions and vacillating Omissions, then consumer spending will continue to dive. This may be good business for the politicians but this is no good for the people.
With an environment of weak consumer confidence, we can expect the investment pipeline will run dry and we are already seeing the fruits of such a strategy; or lack of a strategy to be more accurate. Other than the two big gold mines incubated under the PPP, Guyana is today almost an investment desert. The end results, very little new jobs will be created and the economy will implode as happened in the early 1980s.
Love or dislike the PPP, the workers could have expected programmed 5% increases at every Christmas that was retroactive to January, come rain or sun. Thus people planned their lives around this pittance by spending all of it in their mind before they even received it. The aggregate influence of this heavy expenditure at Christmas was a constructive impact on the business community, which then fed into an uptick in annual economic growth.
Over the last 14 months under the Granger administration, those who have earned between G$50,000-$100,000 have truly experienced a “hard guava” season. But to compound their misery, a “High-Tech” scheme of delays and deception has been launched against them by the Granger administration.
This situation contributes adversely to economic growth and only a certified dunce will not decipher the adverse political and economic impact of this reality. This undue delay in releasing the people’s 10% exposes the intellectual capacity of many in the government and in the GPSU. As a collective, they clearly do not know what they are doing when it comes to modeling and managing the economy.
Income is everything and “a bird in a hand is worth two in the bush”. But if the GPSU leadership continues to “shilly-shally” on this decision, then it will have to be blamed for the workers not getting their money on time.
The GPSU will have to be blamed for actively contributing to the starvation of the workers and this by direct extension will lead to a further decline in the economic prospects of our people. Such an act is unpardonable. I truly wished the GPSU had taken the 10% now and closed off 2016, but immediately commence the struggle for a better wage in the 2017 Budget cycle. This will give the union and the workers the ability to regenerate themselves and the opportunity to refocus their struggle.
Secondly, the distribution of wealth drives consumer spending. It makes no sense paying one contractor and a few politicians $450 million over three years for an uncertified bond that is unnecessary when we can use that same money to pay 60,000 workers $2,500 extra each year over three years.
CONCLUSION
Readers, I have ventured on to a new path in my academic and professional life this September that will not allow me to share myself with you the way I would have liked in the near future but it is all temporary. I am humbled by the fact that Mr. Glenn Lall, Mr. Adam Harris, and their hardworking team have willingly granted me unfettered access to the newspapers as an advocate for the poor and the working class, but it is time to prioritize to become more empowered. Therefore I may not be able to make this a weekly contribution.
I am however, truly excited by the fact that I am seeing more letters from young Guyanese who are based in the homeland and were not there in 2011. I am using this forum to call upon more of them to express themselves in a true Rodneyite tradition, even if you have to ask the media to withhold your identity to protect yourself from petty politicians.
I thank the editor of Kaieteur News in particular and its sister organization the Stabroek News for leading in this struggle to bring good governance to Guyana. But when you think that “Norton BondGate Scandal” was the last, we are now being advised that there is an even bigger scandal happening today under Team Granger. The Cabinet of Guyana is costing the people some $1,012 million in 2016 for their upkeep. That is over a billion dollars. How much worse can it get?

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