Granger must now stop using the Big Lie theory to justify his failure to deliver “the good life”

Dear Editor,
Here we go again. On one of his rare interviews last Thursday as a guest on a radio programme, Hot Seat, the now illegal President David Granger tried to justify his Government’s failure to deliver “the good life” promised to the people of Guyana during the 2015 elections campaign. He said his Government inherited “a number of woes from the former PPP Administration which have somewhat curtailed the pace at which the Government wanted to move”. Once again, and as always, he blames the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) for leaving him a “bad hand” which was “a major draw-back for the development of Guyana”, and insists that the APNU/AFC coalition had done its best to turn around the decline.
Editor, I cannot allow this hogwash to go unchallenged, and I dare the APNU Presidential Candidate to debate our Presidential Candidate, Dr Irfaan Ali, on this issue. That is, if he has the cojonies to do so. Apart from being illegal and unconstitutional, Granger is nothing more than a bold-faced liar who, as a historian, must have studied Joseph Goebbels’ (the Nazi Propaganda Minister) Big Lie theory that “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
On Thursday, October 13, 2016, the then President Granger addressed Members of Parliament in the National Assembly and said, “Your Government entered a depressing financial landscape in May 2015”.
Then, on August 17, 2018, during his address to delegates attending the PNC Twentieth Biennial Congress, the Leader of the PNCR again propagated that the situation which the coalition inherited on assuming office was worse than could have been imagined… “It was a hellish inheritance”.
Let’s not be fooled. This “Big Lie” that Granger keeps repeating is merely an attempt to excuse his Administration for the rapid decline in every sector of the Guyana economy, compounded by the rape of the treasury.
Since 2015, more than 30,000 Guyanese are now jobless. The exchange rate to the US Dollar has been fluctuating on the street around the $215 mark, and at one point was as high as $235.
Not surprising, Historian Granger has never once mentioned the deplorable, bankrupted state of the economy that the PPP/C inherited in 1992 after 28 years of PNC dictatorship. But don’t take my word for it, readers can log on to the link provided below to view the severe crisis that the PPP/C inherited in 1992, a report based on a World Bank economic mission which visited Guyana in October-November 1991: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/840881468033639594/pdf/multi0page.pdf
As you are aware, the World Bank is an independent international financial institution that provides loans to countries of the world for capital projects. They are not affiliated nor are friends of the PPP/C.
By comparison, the following is what David Granger and his APNU/AFC coalition inherited from the PPP/C in 2015:
Despite the riots and destruction by fire perpetrated by PNC thugs after the 1992, 1997 and 2001 elections aimed at destabilising our country, the average growth rate in Guyana from 2006 to 2014 was 4.5 per cent per annum, compared to 0 per cent growth in the years prior to 1992.
In 2014, the last full year of the PPP/C in office, Guyana’s GDP was US$3.1 billion. Our Gross International Reserve held at the Bank of Guyana at the end of 2014 was US$665.6 million. The PPP/C reduced the external debt to just 39.5 per cent of GDP, down from over 600 per cent of GDP in 1992. At the end of 2014, the total assets held at commercial banks were $421.8 billion. Most of it has disappeared now from Government’s reckless borrow and spend policy.
When the PPP/C left office, Guyana’s Gold Reserves were $25 billion. Now this too has rapidly declined to $1.9 billion in 2018. Interestingly, after the PPP/C gained office in 1992, it was discovered that certain PNC Ministers used to smuggle suitcases of gold bars through diplomatic channels to New York.
Now, a similar racket has been exposed and the Administration is very silent about it. I’m talking about the US bank account that was established in the name of a senior Minister of Government with Capital One Bank in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, in 2016. Since then, five million US dollars (US$5 million) has passed through that account. Perhaps if some SOCU officials were not so busy stealing the evidence, and were not so partisan, they would have had a genuine case of organised crime to go after. But back to the bonanza that APNU/AFC inherited in 2015.
The APN/AFC coalition inherited more than US$500 million of resources that were already secured by the PPP/C to finance developmental projects. These included: US$30 million for China Exim Bank to construct a new Cheddi Jagan International Airport, and you know how that ended up; US$66.2 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to fund a road network upgrade and expansion project; US$64.6 million from the IDB and EU to fund a power utility upgrade programme; US$50 million from the India Exim Bank to fund the East Coast to East Bank bypass road; US$34.4 million from the Caribbean Development Bank to fund the West Coast Demerara highway upgrade project; US$31.7 million from the IDB and EU to fund a water and sanitation infrastructure improvement project; US$15 million from IDB for a new Citizens Security project; US$12 million from World Bank for a Flood Risk Management project; US$10 million from the World Bank for a new Secondary Education Improvement project; US$10 million from the World Bank for the University of Guyana’s Science and Technology Support project; and US$7.5 million from the Caribbean Development Bank to fund a sugar industry mechanisation project. Now they are shutting down the sugar industry, and the few remaining workers are on strike for a much-needed pay increase.
After being the beneficiary of such a buoyant economy, David Granger must now stop using the Big Lie theory of Joseph Goebbels to justify his failure to deliver “the good life” to all Guyanese.

Sincerely,
Harry Gill
PPP/C Member of
Parliament