Dear Editor,
The title of Randy Persaud’s rebuttal ‘To say the PNC and PPP both failed equally is to disregard the evidence’ is intellectually dishonest. [Ed note: The caption was supplied by SN not Dr Persaud.] Nowhere in my letter did I state that the PPP and the PNC both failed equally or were equal failures. I said they were both failures. Rather than rebut my piece, Dr Persaud claimed he wanted to highlight the differences between the PPP and the PNC but ended up engaging in the same stale old analysis of the wrongs of the PNC. I am getting tired of this old jukebox playing this tired old song. The other nation wrecker known as the PPP did nothing wrong in Dr Persaud’s analysis. Because men like Mr Ally and Dr Persaud just don’t seem to get it, I will repeat some basic tenets.
Both the PNC and the PPP failed. It is ridiculous and unfair to compare failures operating in different systems and environments. Each regime must be judged based on its own performance within its own period of rule. Fundamentally, Dr Persaud’s letter adds nothing of substance. He makes some points that must be addressed.
With regard to Point 1, everyone knows the PNC operated a completely socialist model from 1964 to 1985 and failed. It operated a free market economy with a socialist political model from 1985 to 1992. From 1992 to the present the PPP has operated a free market economic model and a socialist political model. In essence, the PPP’s current system is fundamentally derived from Desmond Hoyte’s model with the glaring exception of free and fair elections.
If the PNC practised socialism why is Dr Persaud surprised that the state controlled employment? Isn’t this what socialist systems do? To state that private enterprises create jobs in a free market economy is like telling me that Guyanese vote race; something that is expected, normal and nothing new. If Dr Persaud is blaming the PNC for choosing wrong when it chose socialism then he must accept that Cheddi Jagan’s PPP would have chosen the same socialism or even worse, communism, if it had gotten power from 1964 to 1992 instead of the PNC. Just like the PPP had no choice but to take the capitalist economic route in 1992 because the world dictated it due to existing geopolitical realities. There is a major fallacy lurking in Dr Persaud’s argument about free enterprise creating jobs under the PPP. The fact is that private enterprise is largely created and driven by the state in Guyana in 1992.
The PPP collects massive tax receipts from every Guyanese and then transfers it to a few private enterprises as mostly infrastructural contracts. For the PPP has focused mostly on building infrastructure rather than building people since 1992.
Most of the legitimate private enterprise wealth created in this nation since 1992 has been achieved using this route. Between this strange system of private sector development and the job creation of the illegal economy driven by the cocaine cartels, the bulk of the nation’s lacklustre employment has occurred since 1992.
Just so the people of this nation know how private enterprise job creation works in developed nations, private citizens create jobs without governmental contracts using innovation, skill and expertise, and then employ people and they all then pay taxes.
Does Randy Persaud know the PNC and not the PPP actually brought back toothpaste, flour, dhal, soap and sardines?
Forty-plus per cent of this nation was born in or grew up under the 18 years of PPP rule. The PNC is the least of their problems during those 18 years of struggle. Guyana went from abject poverty in 1992 to poverty in 2010, but the bulk of the wealth created in this nation during this time has found itself in the hands of a few. The PPP’s excellent debt service record and LCDS is as much being in the right place at the right time as it is the perseverance of Bharrat Jagdeo.
These are not the PPP’s ideas. They simply benefited from the largesse and charity of the times. President Jagdeo must be praised for recognizing the moment and opportunity and being aggressive in sticking out the begging bowl. If these ideas were around during the PNC’s reign, Forbes Burnham would have similarly extended his begging bowl with aplomb. I agree with Dr Persaud that the PNC cannot hide behind tough world economic conditions to cover up its failure. Similarly, the PPP cannot hide behind those same tough conditions to mask its failure. An administration gets dealt a hand and must plan, adapt, make changes, diversify and transform to come out ahead. Access to housing has been one of the PPP’s biggest achievements. So has been the corresponding massive rise in personal debt among the Guyanese people to fully utilize this access to housing. The cost of materials and labour due to VAT has skyrocketed alongside the rising cost of living. In the final analysis both the PNC and the PPP have tried everything and failed. There is nothing really else to try because at the heart and soul of the failures of both the PPP and the PNC lie the very things that have destroyed us and will continue to destroy us until someone takes a stand: mismanagement, waste, corruption, outright thieving, incompetence, sloth, inefficiency, arrogance, abuse of power, disregard of the rule of law, moral degeneracy and ignorance. That is how we arrived here after 46 years of PNC and PPP rule.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
