Dear Editor,
The developmental prospects of Guyana are distressingly dismal even with the change in government.
During the last fifty-four years (1960-2014), the economy of Guyana expanded by a lacklustre 1.2 per cent yearly. At this rate it will take 58 years for the economy to double its size. For example, constant GDP (GDP adjusted for economy-wide changes in prices; base year = 2005) moved from US$769.9 million in 1960 to $US1,380.5 million in 2014. That is, constant GDP in 2014 was only 1.79 times that of 1960. With such a tepid rate of growth, Guyana’s economy will be twice as large in 2072 as it was in 2014. Even if one assumes, most optimistically, that the economy will expand by 2 per cent annually, it will require 38 years to double in size – in 2052. Trinidad’s economy, on the other hand, grew at 2.3 per cent annually during the same period. At this speed, its economy will double its size in 30 years.
Note: PNC Regime 1964-1992 real g = 0.7%; PPP Regime 1992-2015 real g = 2.7%. In the main, four factors explain the faster rate of growth during the PPP Regime: the Economic Recovery Programme negotiated by the Hoyte regime; the very depressed level of the economy when the PPP came to power in 1992 (it is easy to grow from a small base than a large one); the booming gold price, which led to gold becoming the major export earner from 2000; and surging remittances.
The above does not mean that Guyana’s standard of living will not improve; it will and probably significantly for three reasons. First, a real growth rate of 1.2 per cent will most likely translate in a higher rate of growth in income per person. Second, overseas migration will continue unabated and will continue to depress population growth. Combined with a low natural population increase (crude birth rate minus crude death rate), the country’s population is not expected to increase significantly by 2050. The Preliminary Report of the 2012 national population census found that Guyana’s population fell by 3,339 between September 2002 and September 2015, declining from 751,223 to 747,884.
The latest United Nations (2015) report on population prospects projects Guyana’s population at 806,000 in 2500, which represents a doubling from 1950 (100 years). That is, the UN expects that Guyana will add a little over 58,000 people in the next thirty-five years or about 1,700 per year. This rosy projection seems unlikely. But were it not for migration, the country’s population would have been significantly larger, which means that income per person would have been cut almost in half from what it is today. Guyana would have been a distinctly poorer place.
The third reason is an efficiency argument. That is, there are numerous factors that affect the human condition that do not get counted in GDP. For example, the host of household and consumer electronics, refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, vehicles, medicines, and food are all being produced more efficiently with advances in technology, and are becoming more affordable and more efficient. While the overall standard of living will improve, huge disparities will continue to exist, with the upper classes having a greater amount of money at their disposal. And money buys any and everything.
It is interesting to recall that in 1960 Guyana’s developmental prospects were rosier than many other West Indian countries, but these prospects were not translated into dollars and cents. In large part, the failure is explained by ethnic politics. Independence brought political freedom from the shackles of colonialism, but it unleashed victimization and chaos, which led to an indigenous brand of colonialism. The new masters of the universe were ethnic politicians and ethnic politics became dominant, exclusive, bitterly factitious, and vengeful.
Guyana is a relatively large country endowed with an abundance of mineral resources, agricultural potential and talented people who are willing to adhere to the discipline of an industrial labour force. Nor is there any crippling shortage of finance so long as the investment climate is right. So why has Guyana stuck with the humiliating distinction of being the second poorest country in the Americas and the poorest English-speaking country in the region?
The answer is an amazingly simple and direct one: the monopolization of politics by one ethnic group or the other. The undemocratization of the country’s politics is the root cause of its miserable human development status – the fifth lowest in Latin America and the Caribbean and the lowest in the Caribbean. It is from the ethnicization of the political space that all other ailments spring, including discrimination, marginalization, pervasive and massive corruption, vicious crime, capital flight, money laundering, stifling debt, migration, the fraying of the social fabric, and the sense of entitlements by ministers and other members of Parliament. And absent the gigantic flow of remittances, the country would have been mired in even deeper poverty. Remittances rose from a paltry US$15 million in 1997 to $US493 million in 2013. As a proportion of GDP, this represents an increase from 2 per cent to 16.5 per cent, which is the world’s eleventh largest in 2013.
Unlike the 1960s, the developmental prospects of Guyana are now wretched. Caught in a low level equilibrium trap during the last 50 years or so, there is hardly any hope of breaking out unless two factors are present simultaneously. These are the democratization of politics and a strong political leader who puts national interest above sectional interest and that of his own. With respect to the latter, the country now needs a philosopher and a benevolent dictator, rolled into one, as its president. That was essentially how tiny, resourceless, Singapore developed and has become a powerhouse. Indeed, East Asian Tigers have a few things in common: strong political leaders, heavy investment in education, nutrition and health, and support to particular industries. None of this is present in Guyana today. The current government proclaims that it has no ethnic loyalties and is interested in the development of Guyana for all Guyanese. This remains to be seen.
My only wish is that my analysis is incorrect and that our politicians have the vision, morality, wisdom and courage to put country before self and ethnicity.
Yours faithfully,
Ramesh Gampat
