Dear Editor,
In a letter published on September 19, 2017, titled ‘Jagdeo was no Lee Kwan Yew’, I wrote that the administration of former President Bharrat Jagdeo had squandered the “proceeds from the commodities price surge as well as the roughly US$1 billion aid package from the European Union granted in compensation for the impending 36 per cent cut in the preferential price for Guyana sugar heading to the bloc.” A friend of mine kindly pointed out that I was going off of an erroneous figure previously provided and then retracted by the European Union delegation. As the Kaieteur News reports on July 5, 2017, the EU provided €166,667,000 or US$197,442,061, by my calculation using the prevailing exchange rate.
This represents roughly 5.6% of our Gross Domestic Product, and is a significant sum. But it was not US$1 billion as I wrote.
The error is solely mine and I regret making it and any confusion it may have caused to your readers.
Yours faithfully,
Saieed I Khalil
