Dear Editor,
One can factually compare the political economy pre 1992, post 1992 and post 2015. It is obvious by the numbers that the PNC-led government from 1964 to 1992 took our nation to the gutters, from US$300 per capita in 1964 to US$250 in 1992. They chased away all the foreign investors, took Bauxite, Rice and Sugar to its lowest production.
This week on social media, some of the PNC Diaspora commentators who left Guyana since the dictatorship days, but sit at their computers and blast out economic comedy, said that the Jagdeo government gave away the Bauxite to the Chinese and Russians. Had Dr. Jagdeo not brought in these companies into Linden, we would have had a ghost town by now.
One remembers it was Burnham that chased the foreign companies out of Linden. Today we find the same approach by the new PNC led government. The PNC- led APNU believes in a social welfare state. Basically, redistribution of wealth, anti-business, anti-investors and spend and waste money on frivolous vanity projects such as D’Urban Park.
The co-operative socialism that Mr. Granger was trained on and he is apparently following, is old school, discredited and long gone out of the inventory. If there was underground or drug money as Granger claims, where did it disappear? Just because a government changes, I do not think so. There has been no major arrest or drug bust since APNU came to power. So it is basically incompetent management of our economy that is crippling our nation.
PPP: Compare the PNC’s economic achievements to the PPP-led Government that took our GDP from about US$300M in 1992 to over US$3B in 2014. The ideology was free market economics with a social conscience.
The PPP government rebuilt every sector of the economy; Rice, Sugar and Gold were at an all-time high when they demitted office. They paid down the huge debt left over by the PNC Government. I smiled when Dr Jagdeo said at the PPP Congress that the party has to shed any “isms” because I know, he never implemented any of the “isms”. He ran a well-driven, free-market economy. This was evident by not just the numbers, but by the confidence investors placed in the nation. The economy grew at an average of over 4.5% for over a decade.
The PPP brought in the oil companies, they brought in the gold companies, was in the process of revitalizing the sugar industry, rice was booming, the housing market was at an all-time high, many were owning their own homes and cars, providing education for their children, whether private or public without worrying about VAT. Major transformation projects such as Hydro, Airport Expansion, connections to Brazil and Suriname were in the pipeline. Initiatives such as the Specialty Hospital which would have tremendously benefited our people were squashed by APNU.
From the comparison, it is very clear to see that the healthy economic legacy left by the PPP/C has been replaced by a one seat majority PNC-led APNU government which to date, by their economic actions, or lack of them, is hell bent in driving us to the dark days of the 1980s. To compound matters they are doing so with a vindictive streak that seems to be targeting sections of the community and destroying social cohesion. Were you not better off under the PPP administration?
The Opposition Leader has called for the removal of VAT on private Education, Water and Electricity. If the government knew they needed more money, why then did they give themselves huge pay raises and spend a Billion dollars on D’Urban Park just for Mr. Granger to get the army to salute him. The economic comedy continues to cripple our nation and gravely affect our citizens.
There was a letter in the Stabroek News 2/21/2017 referring to VAT on Private Education from Mr. Saieed I Khalil which I wanted to end here with as his conclusion was brilliantly articulated.
“Editor, the President as well as his Minister of Finance have made a lot of utterances regarding the Brain Tax being essential to `broadening the tax base’ and creating fiscal space. In any first-year macroeconomics class, they teach that if government finances are tight, a government could either cut spending or raise taxes to balance its budget. With a billion dollars for the white elephant that is the D’Urban Park project, the $170 million spent annually on storing condoms and lubes, and the hundreds of millions more yearly to cover the salary increases for members of parliament and government ministers, it is clear that the Brain Tax could be foregone if these wasteful expenditures were eliminated, and the pockets of schoolchildren need not be picked for the government to meet its expenses. In 2020, this will not be forgotten.’
Yours faithfully,
Peter R. Ramsaroop
