Jagdeo’s rule was a disaster

Sep 06, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – From the moment Bharrat Jagdeo took over the Presidency of this country, the economy began to flutter. His rule was an absolute economic disaster.

But all credit must be given to his PR people for continuously camouflaging the trial of disaster that marked Jagdeo’s Presidency. So good were the PR people, that there was even a mass event held at the National Stadium to give him a grand send-off.

For the economy of Guyana and for the ordinary citizens, Jagdeo’s Presidency was a long nightmare. It lasted 12 full years and had the Caribbean Court of Justice had not indicated that a third term was unconstitutional, Guyana would have had to endure an extended period of economic trauma.  In the years preceding his rise to the Presidency, economic growth averaged 7.1%. In the subsequent period 1998 to 2004, economic growth had slumped to a miserly 0.6%. By any measure, this was major regression during Jagdeo’s presidency.

The only reason why recorded growth picked up from 2006 onwards to 2011 was because of the rebasing of the economy. That rebasing has been criticized as presenting an unreal profile of the structure of the economy. Without rebasing, Guyana’s economy would have tanked under Jagdeo.  And when this period is factored into the equation, the Jagdeo’s Presidency reads like a requiem service. Between 2000 and 2010, which can be deemed the Jagdeo years, the country’s GDP only grew at an average rate of 1.95%. One economist described this as lukewarm growth.

Jagdeo presided over some of the worst calamities to befall the nation. The floods of 2005 devastated the country. Officially, the blame was cast on a natural disaster. But there is still a strong view that mismanagement of the East Demerara Conservancy was a key contributory factor. GDP was said to shrink by more than 60% because of the floods. The second major disaster for the country was the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) investments in CLICO. The NIS lost G$5.4B and the government has had to sign an agreement with the Scheme to repay those debts over a period of 20 years.

The third major calamity I have dealt with before. It concerns the loss of a US$187M investment in the Skeldon Sugar Factor, the ripple effect of which was the closure of the Skeldon Sugar Estate. Even the PPP/C which promised to reopen the closed estates could not salvage the situation at Skeldon. The APNU+AFC took a lot of flak for the closure of the sugar estates. The truth however is that the Coalition government inherited a corporation in 2015 which had accumulated G$89B in debt.  But after the fiasco of the new Skeldon Sugar Factory, around which the so-called turnaround of the industry hinged, it was always going to be difficult to keep Skeldon operational. Skeldon had about 2,500 workers. Their jobs were always going to be on the line following the collapse of the Skeldon Modernization Project.

The International Labour Organization did a study of the socio-economic impact of the closure (under the APNU+AFC) of the sugar estates at Rosehall, Sheldon, Wales and Enmore. Interestingly, it found that during the four years of 2007-2011 when Jagdeo was President, employment in GuySuCo declined by almost 3,000 workers.

Also, under Jagdeo, all the estates except Albion and Blairmont, lost money. Skeldon suffered losses of 3.4B in 2011, the final of  Jagdeo’s presidency.   The Jagdeo Initiative was another trophy in his long list of non-accomplishments. Jagdeo was Caricom’s lead on food security. The furthest he got with that initiative was identifying 10 major constraints to food security. He also failed with attracting large-scale investments in agriculture from the Caribbean Community.

Even his much-vaunted Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) was a major flop. One economist noted that the financial forecast for LCDS was unrealised. And even the Norway deal proved to be problematic when it came to the disbursements of earnings. When supporters of the PPP/C are asked to name some of the achievements of the Jagdeo Presidency, they point to the physical structures such as the Berbice River Bridge, the Arthur Chung Convention Center and the Marriot Hotel which started under his watch.  But the first and last of these were mired in controversial financial models which are today still generating debate. The former APNU+AFC government was forced to take over the bridge in order to dismantle the flawed shareholding mode.

The Convention Center was a gift from China, just as the CARICOM Secretariat was a gift from Japan. So Guyana really did not finance these things. In fact, the Chinese had to end up spending hundreds of millions of dollars to repair defects in the Convention Center.  When an objective analysis is done of Jagdeo’s presidency, it will long be remembered as a period Guyanese may wish to forget. But do not tell that to the General Secretary of the PPP/C before he blows another fuse.

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

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana, Peeping Tom, presidency, unconstitutional

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