Statistics and static

Sep 23, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – President Irfaan Ali of Guyana has developed a liking for packing his international presentations with statistics. However, it is never advisable to overload your presentations with statistics.

While statistics do help to illustrate and strengthen the point you are making, unless they are relevant and necessary, they can detract from argument being made. Worst of all, is when care is not taken in assembling statistics, their application can be misappropriated.

According to yesterday’s Guyana Chronicle, the President, when addressing the issue of rising food prices internationally is reported to have said that export bans of rice from India and wheat from Russia contributed to a price increase for these products.

It is hoped that the Indian High Commissioner would take the time to inform Guyana’s President that the actions taken by India were no different in objectives than that which were taken by Guyana earlier this year when there was a shortage of sugar.

Then the government blamed cross-border smuggling of sugar for the shortage. And it took immediate steps to devote existing local stocks to supplying local demand.

India did the same thing. The country had a shortfall in paddy production and in order to ensure internal food security, it banned the export of broken rice and imposed a 20 percent tariff on non-Basmati rice. The temporary export ban on broken rice is intended to ensure adequate domestic supplies of broken rice for stockfeed. The tariff on non-Basmati rice does not necessarily create a shortfall on the global market because other countries such as Vietnam can more than fill the gaps.

Obviously, the ban on the broken rice will have an effect on global stockfeed prices. India is one of the largest exporters of broken rice. But why should Guyana be complaining? Is the President on track to satisfy all the demand for stockfeed from local production of corn and soya and rice? He should be happy that India’s actions may have contributed to the rise in prices since Guyana will gain more for its exports.

Russia took similar action earlier this year to ban wheat exports to some of the former colonies of the Soviet Union. The reason then was the same as Guyana did with its sugar – to ensure adequate supplies locally even though Russia did agree to allow for quotas to those markets to be met. This is not the first time that this has happened. In 2010, Russia was forced to do the same after a heat wave led to massive crop losses of grains.

The time series is important when presenting data. The President spoke about a 65 percent increase in global food prices. But that data comes from suspect source and is from the start of the pandemic. This year, food prices have been estimated to have increased by 12 percent by the same source. The use of the 65 percent figure by the President without qualification suggests a case of exaggeration. While some food prices have increased significantly, overall global food prices have been declining since March of this year.  But not in Guyana!

The President made a strong point about the impact of the lack of vaccine inequity. He quoted a UN study which estimated that low-income countries could have increased their GDP by US$16.27 billion in 2021 if they had a similar vaccination rate as high-income developed countries. The problem with the convenient use of this statistic is that it is one year old and based on modelling which does not apply at present. The use of this data does nothing for the argument about closing gaps. If anything, low-income countries face a similar problem to what is now being experienced in the developing world vaccine resistance.  What about that gap?

The President also used dated data in respect to the allocations for climate adaptation to developing countries. He used 2019 data which is bit unfair. It would have been better to determine the level of present commitments, following COP26. But that data is only now being compiled and is therefore not yet available. Anything that is generated from other sources will not be that credible. There have been suggestions, that the pledged commitment of US$100B annually was met over the past year if all sources of funding are added up. We shall have to wait and see!

The more pertinent point is that Guyana has to cease begging for adaptation funds. Guyana is now the fastest growing economy in the world and is a major oil producing state. It is not going to obtain the sort of adaptation financing that it needs. Already the European Union has signalled the downscaling of its assistance to Guyana.

Charity begins at home. The President has made his case internationally. He now needs to focus on the problems at home, including the bombshell announcement that come next year, the US Embassy will begin issuing immigrant visa for Cubans in Havana.

When this happens, it will leave a huge hole in Guyana’s economy since each month hundreds of Cubans come to Guyana to process their immigrant visas. Their local spending including on food, accommodation and transportation will have effects on the services sector, which when added to the downgrading of development assistance to Guyana will leave the country in a tangle.

(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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