Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 21, 2009 Features / Columnists
Peter R. Ramsaroop, MBA
Chairman, Vision Guyana
INTRODUCTION:
Every day, we are bombarded with economic propaganda. We continue to allow our President to travel the world and to look for handouts. Prior to his trip to Libya, the President said it was all about investment, but when the media forced him to come clean, upon his return, he then said it was about asking for debt write-off.
What is more alarming is that the President travels to a European country soliciting that nation to intervene in the EU decision on the EPA without consulting any of his CARICOM counterparts. He now accuses CARICOM of “sleepwalking” in wanting to negotiate with Canada on the trade department. He also said that the new leaders in CARICOM are not of the same breed as the older leaders like himself, and they do not work with the same zeal as the older leaders like him. I wonder what the Jamaican and Barbadian new Prime Ministers would say to that statement.
We continue to demonstrate to the world that we do not have a consistent plan for our nation, and that we continue to be a begging nation, instead of working on the initiatives that will make our nation a better place for all of us.
DID YOU KNOW?
That although the President tells us how he has brought down the external debt from the PNC days, which is true, he doesn’t tell us that the debt in just last year alone rose by 20 per cent? He admitted to this at his press conference on Monday.
Guyana’s leading financial expert highlighted this in his Business Page in Stabroek News on Sunday, 16th January, 2009. The Government is borrowing at a higher rate per year than the PNC did. Mr. Ram concluded that this Government is about “tax,” “borrow” and “spend.” None of us can disagree with his conclusion.
The failure of the Agriculture Ministry to spend our money wisely and maintain the drainage after spending $1.7B, then has the audacity to take our remaining taxes and then bring small cheques to the farmers, is appalling.
The loss to each farmer, large or small, is so significant that wearing long boots and passing out cheques was looked at as a slam on our citizens. The President was visibly upset that one organisation under the Ministry of Works spent an excessive $32M, yet he doesn’t get upset that his Government spent $1.7B without any significant results. Double-standards! The President also said Guyana is big on agriculture, yet we cannot meet our own production.
Every time the President comes back from a trip, suddenly it seems like we have to deal, at one time, with all the issues that happened while he was gone; and he then has to correct what his ministers did or didn’t do. Mr Ram also enlightened us that there was lower output in all the country’s major commodities during the third quarter of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007.
Sugar fell by 3.6 per cent, rice by 1.6 per cent, and poultry by 12 per cent; while in forestry products, diamond and fishing, the story was the same.
The President said that MPs will be charged in two weeks if they do not declare their assets. At no time did he say that he would release his full assets, and how they were obtained. It is not just about what you owned, but how you got it.
After the list is published, we then will publish a list of all senior Government officials who have sizable assets overseas that have not been reported to the Integrity Commission.
There seems to be a shift from just victimisation of citizens, such as people not being paid NIS or other gratuity, to a new tactic of intimidation. I will expand on this in a future essay.
CONCLUSION
Our nation deserves to be told the truth all the time, every time. The President said on Monday that his only requirement is to the people. It makes us wonder why we elect Parliamentarians.
When we hear the propaganda statements that “The Opposition Bill was defeated in Parliament”, it makes one wonder if, in the last seventeen years, we ever heard the statement “Opposition Bill passed in Parliament, defeated the PPP”. It is always about what the ruling party wants; no matter how great the discussions, anything is rarely changed.
We must push for good governance. We must lobby for a Government that is for the people, that spends our tax money wisely and stops the discrimination and the intimidation. We need to be able to realize our own Guyanese dream of a Government that works for us, an economic plan that moves away from the begging method to a plan to put initiatives in place that focus on creation of jobs at the village level.
It will be great to one day hear our President say he is travelling in order to bring back 100,000 jobs that our nation needs. Until next time. “Roop”.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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