The President and his statistics

May 02, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News  – President Irfaan Ali has developed a penchant for heavily daubing his presentations – addresses and discourses – with statistics. He does this with such proclivity that he often ignores the utility of the use of statistics in presentations.

A Stabroek News editorial of August 19, 2003 had called attention to this tendency of the President. It noted, “… the President is a numbers man. Give him a statistic and he will tweak it for political ends. He can’t help himself. The least the press can do is question where these statistics and all others come from and their accuracy…”

That editorial questioned some of the President’s numbers on mortality rates in Guyana, accusing him of using partial data for 2023 for comparative purposes with other years.  But that may have been an error on someone else’s part.

However, when such errors repeat themselves it becomes a cause for concern. And this brings us to the recent marathon statement issued by the President – lasting some 24 minutes – and addressed to the workers of Guyana.

As an aside, the President must exercise better control over the length of his presentations. Prolonged speeches risk alienating his audience. By persisting with lengthy presentations, he runs the risk of losing their attention and diluting the impact of his message. It is far more effective to be concise and forceful in delivering key points rather than inundating listeners with long-winded discourse filled with unnecessary fluff and jumbled phrases. Brevity will ensure that his message remains engaging and impactful, maintaining the audience’s interest and maximizing the effectiveness of his communication.

In his extended statement, the President said, “In 2020, when the PPP Civic government assumed office, we inherited a broken economy where all the major sectors reported significant decline in output.”  He then went to point out financial losses in the sugar, forestry and bauxite sector.

But financial losses are far different from saying that ‘all’ of the major sectors reported a significant decline in output. In fact, there was never a year between 2015 and 2020, under the APNU+AFC where the economy did not grow.

The PPPC in 2014 left an economy that was tottering. Growth of GDP in 2014 was a mere 1.7% and declined to o.7% in 2015 when the APNU+AFC ousted the PPPC from office.

Growth in 2016 was 3.8%; in 2017 it was 3.7%; in 2018 it was 4.4% and in 2019, the last full year of the APNU+AFC government, growth was 5.4%. These numbers do not suggest a ‘broken’ economy.

The following table shows the output in production in the main sectors; namely sugar, bauxite, rice and forestry:

Output: Guyana’s economy: 2014 vs 2019

As is evident, the only two main economic sectors which declined in output were sugar and forestry. All the other major economic sectors (bauxite, rice, and gold) registered superior output under the APNU+AFC government. Irfaan Ali therefore does not have a strong empirical basis to argue that the PPPC inherited an economy in 2020 with declining output in all major sectors.

The APNU+AFC put the PPPC government to shame in terms of output in gold, and rice and to some extent bauxite. But by the time the APNU+AFC assumed office in 2o15, sugar was on its deathbed, due in no small measure to the drain on the industry’s cash flow because of the costs of the new Skeldon Sugar Factory.

The forestry sector declined on account of the fallout between the APNU+AFC and a major Chinese forestry firm. Observers believed had that company still been operating in Guyana, Guyana’s forests would have been under greater threat.

It is therefore disingenuous for Irfaan Ali to suggest that the PPPC inherited an economy in decline. The Irfaan Ali government inherited an economy in which oil production had just commenced; and it must therefore not blame the APNU+AFC for failing to pay workers better.

In a subsequent column, I will expose the flaws in some of the other statistical metrics used by Ali in his address to workers. This will reveal much of the hollowness of his arguments.

Ali should be reminded that while statistics can be a powerful tool for bolstering arguments, his approach seems more focused on quantity over quality. By indiscriminately throwing numbers into the fray, Ali undermines the credibility of his arguments and risks misleading his audience.

Rather than using statistics as a crutch, he should employ them judiciously, ensuring that they are relevant, accurate, and properly contextualized. This approach would enhance the persuasiveness of his arguments.

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

---

---