Fastest growing economy

Jul 24, 2022 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Encouraging Events, Disturbing Developments

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – We have among the best economic numbers anywhere in the world. This is not somebody else’s news we are reading about, but of ourselves. Speak of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and Guyana is it. Similarly, mention record economic growth, and it is Guyana that is the name, and we are a world leader in the numbers game. In sum, we are giants, with an economy on steroids, with number after number confirming the breathtaking, encouraging developments in this poor country of ours.

But behind the fancy numbers is another story, one that disturbs. I thought of the best way to put this so that all Guyanese could understand. It is like that of worried Guyanese visiting a doctor and getting all these comforting numbers about diabetes, blood pressure, and cholesterol, only for them to drop dead in the street before the end of that same day or week. So much for numbers and how they turn out sometimes.

I take this position because I observe a country that is so rich statistically; yet as a society, far too many of our neighbours, friends, and strangers are so yoked to poverty. The bulk of our national budget goes to build, from which the local and foreign rich get richer. We even borrow by the billions to facilitate our building rampage, some of which are good things, needed things. But as we build with steel, concrete, and glass, our own citizens are glassy eyed from the need of somebody, some leader, to pause and come up with a programme that builds them up in this statistically prosperous land. It is of how to get by in a land soaking in rich numbers and actual riches.

Citizens can’t eat statistics. They can’t buy medicines using leadership speeches. Citizens can’t pay the rent, light bill, or minibus with record growth numbers. In fact, I learned that many Guyanese can’t buy a pack of tennis rolls or a can of sausages. They can only afford one or two of one or the other. And this is in a country with the best GDP and astonishing economic growth. It stands to reason that if Guyana was without this fabulous growth, then more than a few Guyanese could be staring at the spectre of their burial without a coffin because their family can’t manage even that dignity.

We are now in the business of producing endless experts to talk about the economy and economic numbers, but we are not in such a hurry to have halfway decent experts to stand guard over what the oil hustlers are doing with our wealth offshore. Our homegrown experts occasionally find the time to talk about trickledown benefits for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. The supposed recipients in the local environment are still waiting and looking for the first real droplets from this so-called trickledown economics. What the poor in this country do know in this numbers happy country is that the ‘trickle-up’ is, indeed, happening and it is going to the already very rich in our midst. It is more than a ‘trickle-up’ and nothing but an endless rain shower of goodies for our politicians, their private sector friends, and public servants who do dirty jobs for both. They are called ‘middlemen’ in this country. We have all these bright and beautiful numbers and the weak and vulnerable and hopeful are told to take a number. They are still waiting for their names to be called for their share from the numbers bonanza that make the rounds daily.

I know about squeezes from not having while living in Guyana, and early on in the United States. It is why I care about the plight of the poor, am moved to talk about it, and make it a duty to keep their struggles front and centre. Others can forget their roots, refuse to look back, but that’s their choice. I know about pain and outsider status under Burnham, so I can recognise both in these days and under these leaders. Neither pain nor left out has to be. Not in place with so much plenty. Well, the numbers say so, and that is the tragedy.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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