IMF report – cup half full, or a cup of Novocain

Mar 23, 2025 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- The PPP Government must be glowing with delight, high-fives all around. It got the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to see things its way. In the lingo of Texas cowboys, that’s called “hoodwinked” or “hornswoggled”.  The recent IMF 2025 Article IV Mission for Guyana ought to leave the keen-eyed seeing a cup half full, or a cup loaded with Novocain. The jaws of Guyanese are left swollen, locked up. It feels that way. Up first in this man-in-the-street, cold-eyed check, I peer at the IMF’s half-full cup.

The IMF highlighted beneficial ownership transparency, anti-corruption measures, oil money management, and increased debt ceilings, among other positives. Is this the same IMF that quite a few national leaders around the globe described as a mafia entity? I pondered whether the IMF was setting Guyana up to do more business in the West, or to groom it for later loan-shark lending. Still, kudos are due to the PPP Government, when this IMF Concluding Statement is looked at uncritically.  Government under the steady-handed stewardship of the honourable Vice President yielded some fruits. I advise Guyanese to proceed cautiously with anything that the big fella touches. Now for the hard parts, where matters get a little sticky.

The IMF met with government officials, the private sector, and labour unions.  Standard, I say. Friends, neighbours, and countryfolks: what are the first two going to tell, give, and sell to the IMF? That the government has done poorly, fallen and failed in the fastest-growing economy in the world? Will it not present to the IMF team documents that share the sweetest story of the PPP Government’s astute husbandry of the economy? What kind of credible stats can the Bureau of Statistics hand to the IMF, when either its methodologies and numbers are suspect, or its head is somewhat fuzzy? Not that of Dr. De la Cruz, but the shackled agency. What anti-corruption measures which focus more on quantity than quality?  And where are the ethical people to make them happen?

Considering that the private sector has benefited enormously from government’s free-for-all generosity and lavish national budget set-asides, is it going to report to the IMF that it is disappointed and unhappy with Ali-Ashni-Barry? It must be the loudest cheerleader for the political leadership, after all the government freeness received at the expense of poor Guyanese. Poor Guyanese, I am coming to that scorpion. Regarding labour unions, I understand that the IMF did not meet with the umbrella TUC. So, who then, other than GAWU and other PPP-branded and controlled labour unions? To put it smartly, meeting with GAWU is like meeting with Guyana’s chief salesman, Dr. Irfaan Ali. Where the PPP Government is concerned, Pres. Ali only sees roses. Of course, there are cynics, sceptics, and those given to hysterics.  Imagine that one! Dr. Hysteria calling other Guyanese hysterics.

Regarding the economy, GDP has its merits. But there is so much that its glossy percentages obscure. Guyana’s GDP has been nothing, if not so extravagant as to be gaudy. Yet, there are all these hungry people living in poverty. How about that 35-45 (possibly 50%) of Guyanese existing on the poverty line, Mr. IMF? In the fastest-growing economy in the world, how can that ever pass muster, and not found worthy of a look or a comment? I cannot help thinking that the IMF fell into the same category as awestruck visitors, who see all the new skyscrapers and untold yards of road and conclude that Guyana is on the march and already three-quarters of the way to the sky. Like the overawed, the IMF didn’t want to get its hands dirty, so it refused to part the kimono and peek at what was behind. Or below.  There is the central tender board and the equally twisted and demented oversight procurement body. Further, the IMF was uncharacteristically braindead and glassy-eyed to fool itself that transparency, to any degree, exists in Guyana, that the Oil Fund is in good hands, and that money is getting into the hands of the poor. How can the Oil Fund be doing well, when nobody knows where its withdrawals go, when its stewards are an insult to puppets, and when there is that laughable (but expensive) missing element?  The one for blowing the whistle, but nothing for that ‘teefin’? What transparency, when there is so much secrecy: Wales gas-to-energy, Belle Vue, Exxon’s expenses, audit reports?

In aggregate, what the IMF said in its Concluding Statement reminds me of John Hess, the Exxon partner, who loves to chatter about how Guyana is a democracy.  Like him, the IMF saw what it wanted to see, and played it safe: stopped immediately.  Moreover, the IMF was pleased with debt ceilings and oil withdrawals to accommodate expansion. I can’t believe that the mighty and usually conservative IMF could be so cracked up. Ceilings, withdrawals, and expansion are all part of the national enterprise that has corruption written on its face. As is its wont, the IMF confined itself to paper (fixed and ordered by the PPP brass) and consulted with people who all had a stake in putting on a well-rehearsed performance.

To keep its scorecard clean, the IMF met with the Opposition, which gets it a nice bow. But the litany of real troubles, deep gaps, and questionable practices tabled by the Opposition was wasted breath and lost time. Not one word of recognition from the IMF, one qualification in its glistening report. I have seen the IMF go high and go low. This time, it went nowhere distressing. The real Guyana story was given short thrift.

(IMF report – cup half full, or a cup of Novocain)

(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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