Dear Editor,
Feeling the heat from the bonfire of corruption that it has lit over the past four years, the Ali administration has become desperate and is trying to pretend that he cares about the people whom his economy is hurting. With a philosophy that deception is the art of good governance and executed to perfection, Ali went into Parliament on Thursday last with a bag of redistributive measures to beg for forgiveness. He thinks that a one-off cash grant of G$200K will ease the economic pain of the last four years and hoodwink Guyanese into absorbing more punishment in the next five years should he be re-elected. Even before the distribution could get started, his cynical scheme is being exposed by a mundane set of data clumsily articulated implementation strategy.
The Table below was prepared to capture the growth of households in Guyana since 1980. The data covers a period of 42 years and includes the era when Guyana was a net consumer of oil. Today, Guyana is a net exporter of crude oil which production activity began four years ago and most likely may have had an impact, though marginal, on the growth of the number of households. Even with that possibility, the 2022 data in the public space on the increase in households from 2012 appears alarming.
The first concern is the inconsistency in the number of households projected each year by the President and the Second Vice-President. President Ali indicated that his government intends to spend G$60B by giving each household G$200K in the form of a one-off cash grant. On that basis, Guyana would have 300,000 households, an increase of 90K or a growth of 43% since 2012. Relying on Kaieteur News as a source, Jagdeo is reported to have stated that the number of new households stands at 264K, an increase of 53,876 or a growth of 26%. No one knows where he got that information from but given that a population census was done in 2022, one can reasonably assume that to be the source of his information.
The second concern is that the numbers given by both Ali and Jagdeo vary with past trends. The size of the increase ascribed to Jagdeo was as large as the increase of the last two decades combined. Until the recent contradictory disclosures, households were being formed at the rate of about 2,800 per year in the previous two decades. Now, according to Jagdeo’s numbers, households are formed at the rate of 5,300 per year. Ali’s intent to distribute G$60B in cash grants now tells us that between 2012 and 2022, households would have quadrupled at the rate of 9K per year. It is hard to believe any of this without seeing the 2022 census report. The government needs to release that report as a matter of priority to give credibility to the proposed distribution of cash grants.
One of the things that previous census reports told us was that the supply of housing and dwellings tended to move in tandem with the growth in households. Being aware of this, then Guyanese are to believe that the supply of housing and dwellings has grown also at a phenomenal rate. Ali and Jagdeo must show evidence of the reconciliation between the growth in housing or dwellings and the growth in households for people to have faith in their numbers. Or is it proving difficult to reconcile a list of electors with what the 2022 census data on housing and the population is telling us.
Before the echoes of Ali’s announcement had stopped, Jagdeo was reshaping the expectations of the population and contradicting Ali while doing so. Apart from telling people don’t look out for this money too soon, he attempted to justify the variance in the data presented by him and Ali, neither of which seemed to be based on reality. The two figures most likely include non-Guyanese in their count, something which can be verified if the government would be respectful of the population and release the census report. We must wonder how Ali feels after being rapidly audaciously contradicted by Jagdeo shortly after sharing his plans with Guyanese and members of the diplomatic community.
Further, Jagdeo claims that he knows of 40K “secondary households” without electricity meters. That is a large number, constituting 13%-15% of the household numbers presented by him and Ali. Moreover, we never saw the census reports talk about secondary households. Be that as it may, it is reasonable to wonder if 40K households without electricity meters is a sign of poverty. Are these new houses to which GPL has not supplied electricity yet? Since there might be no electricity going to these households, they exist in the dark. One might easily think of them as ghost households.
We must be told with certainty if the 40K were included or not in the 2022 census count. If they were not, where did Jagdeo get his number from? This development also raises questions as to what happened during the census exercise since previous census reports at least told us how many buildings were occupied, vacant and how many were closed, an indication of the households that exist. Census reports never tell us when houses are reopened or re-occupied, but they always affirm the legitimacy of their numbers. Without corroborating evidence, what are we to make of the numbers coming from Ali and Jagdeo?
All these unexplained things could very well be part of incompetent or atrocious governance. But the story of Su, the story of the Mohammeds and the story of Mae Thomas induce the alternative thought that all these inexplicable things might be inputs into the fortress of corruption being built by the PPP to entrench itself in power. We must be concerned too that the government appears ready to drag the Auditor-General into the network of corruption. Should the Auditor-General succumb to the overtures, Guyanese can kiss whatever integrity is left of its financial system good-bye.
Sincerely,
Mervyn Williams,
Former Member of Parliament.