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We need long term economic planning to recover from COVID-19 and the Granger administration

Jul 31, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

Guyana was set to become a major player in the oil sector in the Caribbean in 2020. Fact-checking that promise by Team Granger, today we find that the project just got delayed by 12-18 months because of two main reasons – the COVID-19 pathogen and the post-Granger epidemic of the no-confidence vote in December 2018. Many may not know but all of the oil revenue for 2020 has already been set aside to pay debts run up by Team Granger after the passage of the NCV. So while Guyanese should not expect anything positive from these oil revenues before late 2021 or early 2022, this current period revealed two important facts:

1. Guyana is a price taker in the oil trade and thus we should not use the oil funds to plan for our future but use it to build a sovereign wealth fund that will be strategically tapped to act as a buttress to our national development strategy. The focus should be on essential projects to transform this economy such as making Guyana energy independence and the project to move the agriculture sector to a plantation scale and up the value chain;
2. Guyana’s future certainly resides in the value-added agricultural sector, at least for the next 10 years, until we can solve the weaknesses in our electricity sector, which will then serve as the stimulus to kick start any serious attempt at manufacturing outside of agro-processing.

But before those big dreams, there is the dreadful today. Something has to be done and fast for the people at the bottom of the economic ladder – today as a result, of this COVID-19 pathogen and this Granger-created economic epidemic. So while the watchword today should be ‘economic caution’, if something is not done urgently to help the people at the bottom of the economic ladder over the next 4 months, we will have seismic deterioration in the capacity of our labour force. The focus should be truncated into three periods – the short-term (0-4 months in this case); the medium-term (month 5 to the midterm of the first Irfaan Ali term); and the long term.

The short-term must be very focused on gathering the opening balance sheet on the real assets left behind after this period of scorched earth tactics as practised by Team Granger in their attempt to destroy and deplete everything in their dying days. On top of that fact-finding mission, it is advisable that simultaneously a support programme should be launched in order to catch all those who have just fallen into poverty and those already in poverty. The aim of such a social amelioration programme is to inject some economic energy into the lives of those at the bottom of the economic ladder by way of a food hamper programme and a very targeted cash disbursement programme. Of course in the first days of the new government, it must also be focused on crafting an emergency budget to ensure that the baseline manifesto promises are programmed to meet the challenges of the day including the COVID-19 fight back. As we can already see, there is lots of work to be done.

Yours truly,
Sasenarine Singh

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