Dear Editor,
With regards to its “ambitious” infrastructure projects, the PPP government has no hesitation in going on a spending splurge. As billions of dollars roll out the treasury, the PPP government considers as irritants and vexations such demands as feasibility studies, community consultations, proper financial management, contractor competence, and development planning.
But when it comes to spending directly on the people of Guyana, this squanderer of the public funds suddenly gets shy and elusive. We recently learnt, for example, that in the apparently onerous process of thinking about the possibility of raising the minimum wage, the government has to pause and ponder, peep and probe, jiggle and juggle numbers, and search for something called “fiscal space.”
Note that this deep search by the government was announced as news for the people to celebrate. Apparently, the nation is supposed to wait in excited and grateful anticipation as the President explores every corner of the State vault for nickels and dimes.
That the sheer ridiculousness of this scenario is totally lost on the PPP goes to the very core of what the PPP is. It has no difficulty in splashing out money on infrastructure projects, but squirms and agonizes about implementing serious measures to end poverty and economic hardships in Guyana. It has no worries about inflation and Dutch Disease – only as excuses to avoid raising wages and salaries and lifting living standards.
A political party must have an ingrained personality disorder if it sees no incongruity, no absurdity, in the coexistence in the same space of vast national wealth and vast number of poor and struggling households. I have argued before that the PPP sees a deprived and dependent population as a political virtue, exploitable to feed into its own warped self-identity and self-worth. The more economically empowered Guyanese become, the more purposeless the PPP feels. A Guyana free of poverty with all households enjoying high living standards is therefore not the vision the PPP has in mind. Luckily, Guyanese can still replace their government.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe