Dear Editor,
Dr Clive Thomas has been writing for decades about the phantom/underground/parallel economy in Guyana, He has been enumerating some fantastic numbers such as those penned in Stabroek News of February 16, captioned ‘SARU defends assets recovery bill -says country was bleeding $313 B per annum.’
The $313 billion the country is supposedly losing per annum is sourced from undefined metrics, with numbers that are unverifiable. The substance of the reporting from the newspapers relates to various numbers, eg, “the nation was losing $28-$35 billion each year through procurement fraud. In relation to capital flight, the nation was losing $90 billion every year. Furthermore, the underground economy caused the nation to lose $188 billion per year… adding up to a grand total of $313 billion per year, which is a conservative figure”.
It is unfortunate that the emergence of SARU has adversely affected the efforts by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan, who is trying mightily to set our economic ship on course for improved economic growth. Instead, the imminence of SARA, among other factors, has our commercial banks unable to provide on demand, United States dollars to their clients, who have USD accounts. Basic wire transfers, from as little as US$500, have to go into bank trays for processing that can take over a week. During the ‘wait’ period, if the exchange rate weakens, the customer has to pay more for the USD, if the transfer is ever made.
The general thrust of the post May 2015 government is to spend an extraordinary amount of time and money to set up a so-called apparatus of anti-corruption units, led by the State Asset Recovery Unit (SARU). Hopefully, common sense will prevail and the bill never becomes an Act. If it does, it will, in my opinion, reduce the GDP per capita and the growth of the Guyanese economy and permit unacceptable acts. We are creating a monster with powers that no politician of any party ought to have.
The folly of the ‘underground economy’ analysis (it is reasonable to assume that a thorough analysis was done) is the complete lack of a comparative analysis as to what obtains in other countries, be it Trinidad, Jamaica or the USA, with regard to procurement fraud, capital flight and the underground economy. One cannot justify the numbers supplied by Professor Thomas without context.
If the USA cannot keep drugs to any discernable degree from entering the country since the ‘war on drugs started’, it is foolhardy to think that Guyana, with its wide-open and unprotected borders and airways, can impact drug smuggling and the use of Guyana as a drug transshipment country in any significant way.
Another black polar bear argument by Dr Thomas or SARU (the two seem undistinguishable) is that, “The Guyana population is eager to see the country’s assets recovered”. My question for those on the SARU bandwagon is: where is the starting point for the recovery of assets? Is it from the first rigged election in 1968 through to 1991 in post independent Guyana? It should be easy to make a case for property transfers, whether by deed, gift, sale or discounted sale, to be recovered that took place over the rigged election period. Of course, leases could also be revoked for reasons of lack of legality, during the 1968 to 1991 period.
Dr Thomas struggled to expose the unfree and unfair elections, whether as leader of the University of Guyana, Ratoon group and/or as a co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance, when he protested vehemently against the authors of those elections, be it the rigged elections in 1968, 1973, 1980, 1985 or the 1978 referendum that bequeathed us the infamous 1980 Constitution of Guyana.
Dr Thomas and several others in the leadership of the WPA seem to have abandoned the working class of Guyana, some openly, others by hiding or writing in the margins on flippant matters or shadow boxing around the substantive and controversial issues of the day. They are always attempting to reference something worse that happened under the previous government, and never referencing the awesome and inspiring struggles of Rodney at the height of illegality, brutality and disenfranchisement in Guyana. These colleagues of Dr Rodney seem to have disavowed his doctrine, which is very relevant and much needed in Guyana today.
American historian, playwright, social activist and political science professor, Howard Zinn in the documentary about democracy, ‘You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train’, noted, “The racism that has been partly extirpated in society, all of that was not done by government edict. It was not done by the three branches of government, it was not done by that structure, which we learn about in junior high school, which they say is democracy, it was all done by citizens movements, and keep in mind that great movements in the past have arisen from small movements, from tiny clusters of people who have gotten together here and there; if you have a movement strong enough, it doesn’t matter who is in the White House, what really matters is what people are doing, what people are saying and what people are demanding.”
Walter Rodney is our Howard Zinn, and all Guyanese need to fully embrace his writings, pronouncements and sacrifice, and resist the formation of oppressive institutions, division of our people and harsher living conditions, before it is too late.
The positions Dr Clive Thomas has been assigned to post the May 2015 elections are multiple: Presidential Advisor, Head of SARU, Chairman of GuySuCo and Commissioner on the GuySuCo Commission of Inquiry. Dr Thomas is now deeply and comfortably entrenched in the bosom of the APNU+AFC government. No conflicts there that the blind can see.
It seems to me that the powers that be in the coalition have an unhealthy fixation on Pradoville 2, particularly the property occupied by former executive president of Guyana, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo. The obsession goes beyond reason and logic and is divisive, counterproductive and to a large extent has brought the beast known as SARU into existence. It is inevitable that over time, if SARU ever becomes SARA, it will be an extremely powerful apparatus for witch-hunting, and be answerable to the beck and call of the politicians’ in power. We have already taken the ex-president to court on some wispy charge, considering all that obtained in Guyana during the pre-election period. Now to make him homeless! What an admixture of wasted energy, focus and resources, all with very bad intentions that will result in long term negative repercussions for Guyanese.
I note that for decades that Dr Thomas has written about Guyana’s sugar industry and how it could be revitalized and made viable. Now with Dr Thomas as Chairman of GuySuCo, the crisis in the sugar industry has accelerated; it does cause one to wonder as to the usefulness of his research and lengthy writings.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Hinds
