Bingeing on debt

Oct 30, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Guyanese are familiar with how people behave when certain conditions are in place. It is how close friends, family members, even total strangers find ways to take advantage of them, because they can do so, and have no responsibility for the resulting bills.
Guyanese returning home have experienced others running up huge bills in their names. It could be in social establishments, or stores and marketplaces. People from near and far invite themselves, and position themselves to take part in the good times. But at the end of it all, there are those bills at the bar or the counter to be honoured, with nobody caring where the money is going to come from, besides that they have no ownership of whatever the charges are.
This is what leaders in the present PPP Government are engaged in with energy and zest. A recent front-page caption of ours conveyed the story: “Guyana borrows 10 times more from IDB than it did in first 6 months of 2020” (KN October 28). Ten times more is a heavy undertaking, and this is no matter what the underlying circumstances are, given that this is a poor, hurting society still struggling to find its way. Ten times more than the equivalent span in 2020 can be described as excessive, so unacceptable it should be to all Guyanese. It does not matter which leaders or which party presides over this, it is plain wrong, because it is too much, too quickly, and too recklessly.
On a comparative basis, the first six months of 2020 saw Guyana caught in the throes of elections fevers, and the comas that came after March 2. It as if everything froze here and remained in that suspended state, though senior people in the Coalition did find occasions to help themselves, to continue the malpractices that have plagued this society for decades. So, there was a lot of catching up to do by the succeeding PPP Government, and numerous areas in need of serious corrections. So, the comparison to the corresponding period in 2021 confronts different circumstances.
We acknowledge that those cost money, and in the many millions, especially when the slowdowns and convulsions of the COVID-19 pandemic are factored in the spending equation. We, at this paper, will be clear and unambiguous as to where we stand with all this massive borrowing. It is too much in a short time, with much of the subsequent outlays taking the form of cash. Even when cash is not involved in this country, leaders and cronies find ways to enrich themselves, and when cash comes into the picture, there is no limit to the predations.
We say, too, that some of the borrowings were necessary, could not be avoided, and we support those, which the Bank of Guyana report stated swallowed up 75.2% in addressing pandemic related conditions. It means that of the stated US$55M (GY$11 billion) in borrowings for the first half of 2021, approximately GY$7.5 billion was absorbed by pandemic spending. It is a load of money, most of it cash, that was expended. Already, there are howls that pervasive corruptions have visited the processes intended to offer relief to stricken Guyanese. We are still some time away from auditing those expenditures, but things don’t look encouraging at this stage. This much we can share: put Guyanese leaders and public servants close to that amount of cash, and no help ought to be needed, as to what could, and usually, follow. And, when non-pandemic borrowing, the rest of the GY$11B, or $3.5B is reckoned with, we have to ask whether our leaders in this Government took on more than we can chew.
For it is Guyanese who have to foot the bill, payback the debt. President, Vice President and Ministers all get to make fancy speeches about how much they care, and how much they are doing. What is left out is what they are really doing with all that cash, where some of it inevitably ends up. Guyanese don’t need any help from us to connect the dots.
Guyanese need to be concerned, because debt is not free money. It has to be repaid by them, with more debt coming.

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Bingeing on debt

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Bingeing on debt

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