Dear Editor,
With respect to my queries on Mr Tarron Khemraj’s economic analysis of President Jagdeo’s tenure (SN, August 12; 19), I have not submitted any individual response to my critics on the SN blog. All the gentlemen failed to grasp my point. I did not seek to defend any lapses in policy by government, but sought to highlight some salient omissions which the analysts clearly admitted to.
I stated I am no economist and focused on those omissions which according to Mr Khemraj, were points “well taken.” He admitted to the painstaking work involved in assessing the volume of rainfall and the “multiple regression techniques” applied by very astute economists to economic analyses. In other words Mr Khemraj’s analysis was at best was somewhat faulty and incomplete.
However, he kindly acknowledged with regard to the GDP of Barbados and Bahamas that, “The levels were provided to show the context of the slower growth of the more developed economies like Barbados and the Bahamas. The latter economies would have already achieved some level of maturity and therefore could grow slower than Guyana.” Does this not validate my point about Guyana’s gigantic strides amidst setbacks in the context of the similar effects of such conditions on other economies, which though more developed than Guyana grew more slowly than Guyana’s?
My interest in all economic analyses whether from the IMF, World Bank, UN or sister agencies and individuals, had always left me wondering about omissions. In the public service I witnessed the huge sums expended and losses suffered in the construction industry during my tenure at the Central Roads Maintenance Unit as chief clerk. Again I never understood why more hydro-meteorological data were not accessed in road construction.
Not only were losses suffered in the expenditure on works and material which had to be overhauled and replenished, but the national development drive was hampered thereby. Remember the mammoth losses suffered in the UMRP/UMDA project? These setbacks must have significantly affected the GDP of the nation, but it seems no one focused on such matters. In the eighties, I raised the question of the unreported losses suffered by farmers due to unseasonal weather patterns. I came out of a farming community which had been experiencing such losses since I was a boy.
During my tenure at the Civil Defence Commission, I convinced Mr Chander Persaud, Chief Hydromet Officer, to do a paper on the adverse effects of unseasonal weather patterns on the rice industry. His report for a ten year sample was presented at the first Disaster Management Conference at the Tower Hotel in 1985, and became a widely sought after document. The losses suffered by farmers alone amounted to over $10M annually. With the rate of exchange back then at approximately $2.50 to US$1.00 we were looking at a significant dent in GDP as it is reflected in the case of farmers only.
More recently, the setbacks in the agricultural project (the MMA/ADA) did engender some exchanges in the press. Poor and hasty implementation, lack of maintenance since its inception and the silting up of estuaries all impacted the viability of the NDIA and MMA/ADA. Who suffered annually? Farmers. The debate about the impact of the various adverse weather and external (Amazonian) silting situations were very heated.
In the 1996 flood, as before in previous cycles, farmers suffered the loss of almost everything except their homes, equipment and resilience. I did the only sampling on the losses sustained by one farmer as a service to the Partners of the Americas. That one farmer lost approximately $20M in rice, cash crops and cattle.
There are larger farmers in the MMA grid who suffered worse losses. Ten such farmers grouped together had suffered over $200M in losses in crops and livestock. Did anyone bother to do any loss or damage assessment? None was done before and such was the lot of the farmers. That is why virtually zero data is available for nearly one hundred years before the 1996 flood.
The entire nation did business as usual without as much as a comment from the economists then and before. Two governments neglected losses to farmers without any form of compensation or assistance. It was not until the 2005 flood fiasco, when Georgetown finally faced the full impact, that the government and the international community awoke from their slumber.
The ECLAC findings were not like anything ever experienced in hurricanes or flooding in the Caribbean except on a collective basis. It set Guyana ten years back in its development thrust. What was more revealing was a system which was identified at a cost of over US$300M to reduce the vulnerability of the population. You can blame the government for lack of an aggressive policy to curtail such impacts, but remember while much has been said about how much was spent on the D&I works, we are still dealing with the surface of the problem even as identified by ECLAC. What policy would the analysts and the numerous critics recommend without the necessary financing? See ECLAC reports at www.gina.gov.gy/eclac.pdf
To compound the losses suffered by the nation, the year 2006 had a repeat of the year 2005 catastrophe. 9000 head of cattle suffered in that flood apart from the crops which were destroyed. While this flood was more localized in the MMA, the rice-producing grid of the nation suffered with a shortfall in the country’s earning/export capability. Did we get a detailed published report on the 2006 flood as was done for 2005? I am still looking out for same or maybe I missed it. To compare Guyana with Suriname and Fiji is a non-issue in the debate.
For my critics, I am convinced that none of them have any inkling as to the losses suffered yearly or cyclically by farmers. And Mr Khemraj has rightly admitted much work has to be done to ascertain the amount of rainfall, etc, in the analysis between Guyana and Suriname. The field of research is wide open to all who would impartially enter in.
Yours faithfully,
Seopaul Singh
