Dear Editor,
I feel sorry for Dr. Ashni K. Singh. I really do. Dr. Ashni Singh has been given a white handkerchief and a drinking straw to calm an unchained, famished, and raging pit bull. It all has to do with debt service, interest rates, and the outlook for Guyana. Guyana is inanimate, a landmass. It is the Guyanese people, alive and breathing, who I am concerned about. For it is these hardy citizens, who are yoked to the debt that the PPP Government incurs on their heads, the ones burdened by its increasing levels. The national debt is set to balloon, with 40% ($458B) of this year’s mindboggling budget covered by borrowings.
Dr. Singh waxed brightly about taming the inflationary beast (my words) which necessitates rising interest rates. Then, he went into the world of the US Fed and the “benchmark overnight secured financing rate” registering a significant increase. Remember: I was there, so those were lived with, and not of the abstract. In sum, Dr. Singh laid the ground for his anxieties about debt service, and what interest rates could do to that, should they rise. He did well. For there he was rising to gloriously new heights with a proposed increase to the debt ceiling. This can’t be the same Ashni K. Singh who is concerned about potential debt service severity pushing for increasing the debt ceiling. There is a contradiction not to recognize that debt service challenges for Guyana are all too real, yet driving forward (recklessly, if I may) to increase the debt ceiling. I scratched around for an illustration, found the perfect one.
Worrying about debt serving is like a man warned to stop drinking; danger lurks. If it is okay with Dr. Singh, this is about what I have cautioned my brothers in the PPP Government: stop bingeing. On debt, that is. Look to where the PPP Government has taken Guyanese with the thrill of spiraling debt at breakneck speed. It is killing them. Today, it is another round of debt, 40% more to fund the budget, or $458B. Hence, increasing the debt ceiling. If anybody asked me $458B more is blowing off the roof. Clearly, Dr. Ali and Dr. Jagdeo got Dr. Singh to face the public, do the heavy explaining. With all these doctors around, Guyanese should not be so sick, but there is no cure for political COVID.
The debt ceiling raising is to give a gloss to the PPP Government’s pretended subservience to legal requirements. The debt service is where the knife gets twisted in Guyanese. Repayment of principal and interest, if the head still works. Debt service can be a witch, a real killer of a hangover that refuses to go away. They call it debt overhang, and guess whose head it falls upon….
Debt is part of the patented Ponzi scheme perfected by the PPP Government. Borrow, borrow, borrow. Then get Guyanese to pay back. Look at the numbers, one in particular: $204.1B for roads and bridges. It is 17.8% of the budget. Guess who benefits from that scheme, but PPP cronies and cabals. Guess who gets the honour of repaying, but Guyanese with nothing to write-off against their taxes. Fellow citizens, I give Dr. Ashni K. Singh, a word of advice, sir: stop the damn borrowing, the bingeing and sporting on debt. Of course, that is where the action is: borrowing and infrastructure. It’s party time.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
