The time has come to bring the electoral impasse to an end

Jul 22, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

As we stand face to face with the new reality of the world, COVID-19, world leaders are perplexed and baffled on the way forward as they watched helplessly at world economies reeling in some countries, almost to a complete halt.

The coronavirus recession is full of uncertainty and the unfolding recovery is slower than many economists and leaders expect and weaker than in the past. During the great recession, there was a rapid rebound of the global value chain, which was a major driver of productivity and growth, but now, we can see broken supply relationships and a major decline in the world’s trade volumes. So definitely, the recovery will be sluggish and the trend of the GDP growth may not return to the pre-pandemic trajectory.

Charles Michel, President of the European Union, describes the situation to the leaders as “Mission Impossible” as he along with Christine Lagarde, Chief of the European Union Central Bank, are trying to convince the 27 nations to accept the two trillion dollars’ stimulus package in an effort to prop up the respective economies.

Millions of businesses worldwide will not be able to open doors thus causing massive unemployment, starvation, hopelessness and poverty of the likes never seen by the world before. Our country Guyana is no exception. The time has dawned upon us for us to bring this electoral impasse to an end, so that together we can confront this pandemic with better planning and a systematic approach.

Guyana’s economy is very fragile and tremendous hardship will reach our people if this situation cannot be settled. We must take into consideration that the 2020 revenue shortfall is going to put policy makers in obvious difficulties in their future planning.

I humbly appeal to all concerned particularly President Granger, whom as Opposition Leader and as President, I had some healthy conversation with, let wisdom prevail and be the statesman most of us see you as. Sanctions are an extremely serious issue and we should not take it lightly. It will bring untold hardship on the population. It will create serious economic hardships, hyperinflation, collapse of Banks and other institutions, societies would be ravaged, everything you own becomes valueless. Time is no longer on our side Mr. President; serious decisions must be hastily made.

Yours truly,

Nazar Mohamed