Dear Editor,
In the run-up to the May 2015 elections PPP ministers that you never saw for years together with their opportunistic compatriots will be darting across the country preaching the past, meaning pre-1992. They will find the best part of the community to assemble for meetings where over the past few months roads were fixed, garbage picked up and drains dug. Mindful of the fact that little sustained action was done in the past 3 years to improve these communities they will try to distract voters’ attention to how bad things were in the 1970s and 1980s, for example; how food was short because we were forced to eat what we grew. But, what they will not tell you is what will happen to us, the ordinary man, woman and child in the next 5 years if the PPP wins again.
Most of the promised capital projects are not expected to benefit or provide anything extra to the ordinary person. One only has to look at the Berbice Bridge which has not seen a reduction in cost to regular travellers. Already we have seen the Skeldon estate plant, built at a cost of over US$200million by the Chinese, fail to offer private cane farmers profitable incomes, while sugar workers’ salaries remain the same. When government piloted the Amaila Falls hydro project, pegged at a cost of US$1billion, half of which was with planned financing from a Chinese loan, there was never the argument that the cost of electricity would be lowered. Only when Amaila failed to get the approval of all parties did the government take to the state media to say it would have reduced the cost! (We are yet to hear of the alternative three smaller (far cheaper) hydropower plants proposal which was also included in the IDB study). The planned deep water harbour is likely to be funded and built through another Chinese loan, very possibly with Chinese labour. Funding for the CBJ airport expansion is also the target of Chinese funding and construction and offers little real added value to the ordinary persons and tourism business except for the extended runway. The Marriott? I say no more. For these huge sums of money to be spent for such projects, and minimal rewards to ordinary folks, is it worth investing in these Burnham-Jagdeo style projects?
However, the PPP has to say whether there would be a new wave of Chinese ‘investment’ if they win another five years in office. Chinese funding for capital projects requires some form of payback as no donor gives concessional financing for free or without conditions. Right now the commercial sector in the major towns and townships of Guyana has seen the entry of many Chinese investors. We do not know what concessions are granted to them, but selling their products which travelled all the way from China at such cheap prices must benefit from incentives. The private extractive industries of gold and forestry already boast Chinese investors. These investors are given free rein and huge concessions by the PPP leaving local businesses uncompetitive.
Will the PPP say if they win the upcoming elections, whether there would there be a new wave of Chinese, and to a lesser extent Brazilian investors in the economic sector? If they say that is the policy, then what will happen to the remaining small retail shops and businesses, etc, operated by the simple ordinary Guyanese across the country. In such circumstances, small vendors will struggle to compete. Just drop into key villages along the coast and in Lethem and you will see the inroads into the retail sector. All developed countries know that small businesses are the backbone of their economies. Current businesses would have to rent out their buildings and other assets, as quite a number have already done, to Chinese ‘investors’ and live on the rent for the foreseeable future.
I use Chinese as an example just to showcase what unregulated foreign investment combined with collusion and personal greed can do to an economy. It is not that we do not like foreign investors, but a country which indiscriminately hands out the resources of our country without balancing the needs of the population at large undermines the local economy.
Yours faithfully,
Latchman Singh
