Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 22, 2012 Letters
Dear Editor,
Last Friday (February 17) in Georgetown, I watched and I listened, first in amusement, then amazement, then stupefaction and finally anger, real hot anger as Carl Greenidge, the failed Minister of Finance under both Burnham and Hoyte Governments, attempted to justify the “most dastardly parliamentary betrayal of our country,” ever recorded in the pages of its history.
Sitting next to him was Brigadier General (Rtd.) David A. Granger, one of, if not the most highly trained General Officers Guyana has ever produced, who now at this stage in his life is APNU’s Chairman and Guyana’s Opposition Leader (more about Brigadier General Granger and what impact his entrance into politics has made and can make on Guyana’s Body Politic.)
Several things about this image were/are wrong. Greenidge is the wrong person to be representing any person or Political Party on financial and economic matters in Guyana. His record and performance coupled with his abrasive and belligerent arrogance so devastated Guyana that up to today certain areas in Guyana, such as Linden, (more on how Greenidge destroyed the Bauxite Industry and undeveloped Linden in a later piece) cannot emerge from that dark and oppressive period.
His policies were so devastating to Guyana that the mere swallowing of the bitter IMF pill to recovery destroyed the mostly black middle class and transformed (mostly Black) well-salaried state workers into unemployed petitioners at the doors of SIMAP.
Secondly as I listened to Greenidge mouth platitudes like” Rule of Law”, “Obey the Law,” “The constitution says,” “The Auditor General says,” “Financial probity,” “Cannot abuse the contingencies fund etc.,”. I wondered whether Greenidge had amnesia, or whether he thought that the Guyanese people had amnesia or were fools!
Carl Greenidge has the dubious distinction of being the only Finance Minister in Guyana whose disobedience of the law, whose lack of financial probity in the way he operated, whose complete disregard for the constitution, while ignoring and marginalizing the Auditor General, and whose consistent and relentless abuse of the contingences fund, perhaps was the worst in the Commonwealth at that time.
And as if to rub salt into the wound, he bestrode the hallowed halls of the National Assembly with an arrogance that was born of the knowledge that his Government had in excess of 2/3 of the seats therein – sparing no thought as to how they were obtained.
But the unkindest cut of all is not that spurious political points were scored by the opposition in their mindless and useless game of one-upmanship at the expense of the Guyanese people, but that the image of Guyana as a stable country in which to do business has taken a severe battering. One only has to understand that Standard and Poor’s downgraded the USA’s , AAA credit rating, not because that country’s economic fundamentals are not solid and strong, but because of gridlock and intransigence in the House and Senate – these same tenets that have now emerged in our National Assembly and which were so vividly demonstrated for the world to see last week.
This matter could have been approached differently. The leaders of the two opposition parties in the so called “Tripartite arrangement” could have jointly approached the President to instruct the Finance Minister to provide more information/explanations on the Financial Papers, thereby guaranteeing their support, even if it meant postponement of the debate for a week or two, instead of taking the country through this unnecessary, unproductive, heart-wrenching travesty.
After years of neglect and systematic destruction by the likes of Carl Greenidge, Guyana’s economy today is not only on the upswing and poised to really rapidly take off – the housing and mining sectors being the main engines of this dynamism – but Guyana is now the envy of every Caricom country. Guyana today is now the country in Caricom in which to do business.
We cannot make the same mistake again, as we did as a country decades ago, and destroy all of these new economic gains on the altar of political muscle-flexing, gamesmanship and expediency.
The opposition must use its newfound Parliamentary strength in a positive way, it must find ways, novel ways if necessary, to work with the Government in continuing to move Guyana forward. One thing I would like to see the opposition do, almost immediately, is to craft and introduce a jobs creation bill in the Assembly to help and spur rapid growth in undeveloped areas like Linden. This is what the armies of thousands of unemployed are waiting and hoping for, not useless and unproductive mind games.
APNU has done no better than the PNCR had in past elections, so it is the AFC with its additional seats – that can be justifiably credited with making this travesty possible. Its supporters voted for it so that it may use its seats in the National Assembly in a positive way in the interest of the Guyanese people. What transpired last week in that august house can never, under any set of circumstances be described as positive, nor can it be said to be in the interest of the Guyanese people.
The AFC needs its own spokesperson on financial matters and the economy. To watch and listen to Carl Greenidge represent Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan on matters pertaining to the economy and finance is to watch a cruel joke – a very cruel joke indeed being played out on the Guyanese people.
Phillip Bynoe
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