In Guyana, several people have their own brands of Trumpism. Trumpism is the exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations and, frankly, outright lies pushed by unprincipled showmen parading as economic czars. Minister Jordan, last week, in a response to an October 9 editorial in Stabroek News displayed his flair for Trumpism. He disgraced himself and heaped further disgust by the citizens for the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) which, day by day, is becoming more a Government of the few, by the few and for the few.
One of the main speaking points of the President and his Ministers is that all the things wrong in Guyana is the fault of someone else, other than the Government. In their best Shaggy mode – “it wasn’t me”. In addition to the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Jordan, like all of his colleagues in the APNU/AFC Cabinet, cast blame and castigated the Private Sector, Stabroek News and the media generally for the failures of APNU/AFC. He claimed that the PPP ruined the economy and that the Private Sector and the media, represented by the Stabroek News, is shielding the PPP and sabotaging progress by APNU/AFC on behalf of the PPP. But Jordan also claimed that the country’s economy and social welfare of its people have never been better.
The fact is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 2015 to present has been spiralling downwards, compared to the GDP between 2006 and 2015. The PPP left an economy that was stable and robust, APNU/AFC is squandering that trajectory since 2015. Between 2010 and 2015, the economy grew about five per cent, with growth nine years in a row, one of the better-performing economies in the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the Americas. Since 2015, however, GDP has stagnated. Last year, Jordan projected 3.9 per cent growth and only achieved 2.1 per cent, just about half of what APNU/AFC had predicted. Jordan’s Trumpism boasts that “Guyana is increasingly seen as a stable, well-managed country with bright prospects for sustainable development”. By whom? The truth dispels Jordan’s claims.
Jordan admits that non-performing loans (NPL) has dramatically increased, but then ingeniously blamed the PPP for the worsening NPL. In 2014, NPL was seven per cent of all loans and at the end of 2017, it was more than 13 per cent of all loans. Since 2014, banks have lost more than $7.1 billion in NPL by businesses and more than $3.1 billion in household loans. People are simply no longer able to repay their loans. NPL is the major reason why the commercial banks have seen the return on their equity (profits) dramatically falling from 22.3 per cent in 2014 to a miserly 2.9 per cent in 2017. So why were people paying back their loans under the PPP and not able to do so now?
It is because their ability to spend has reduced significantly. The talk is “business slow bad”. Spending by businesses and the public (private consumption) has fallen by almost $200 billion since the end of 2014. In 2015, private consumption fell by $79 billion, in 2016 by $85 billion and the latest measure indicates that it fell by $32 billion in 2017. People are spending about $30,000 per month less, in each household. In part, this is because of the 200 new or increased taxes. Each citizen has paid more than $64,000 in additional taxes between 2015 and 2017. The Guyana Revenue Authority and APNU/AFC have boasted they are collecting record amount of revenues, confirming that people’s ability for spending have been eroded by increased taxes.
This dismal picture is only the beginning of the story. Private loans (business and household) have virtually grounded to a halt, with decreased manufacturing loans leading the way. In the meanwhile, Government is borrowing more, Government public investment spending (infrastructure and the social sector) is like the Burnham years, dependent on loans from overseas and local banks again. Increased tax collection, squeezing blood from the Guyanese people and businesses, are totally consumed by the increased interest on debt to overseas and local banks. While the national debt is increasing, the GDP is faltering and the ratio of debt to GDP is again reaching unsustainable heights. The PPP had reduced it from over 950 per cent of GDP to less than 45 per cent and now it is approaching the unsustainable mark of 60 per cent again.
They are borrowing more, taxing people more, but the deficit (spending more than they have) is increasing by $9.3 billion in 2015, $34 billion in 2017 and will be more than $43 billion in 2018. As part of this picture, revenues from Government-owned businesses have moved from a surplus of $8 billion in 2015 to a loss of almost $23 billion in 2018. In the meanwhile, more than 10,000 people have lost their jobs. Jordan’s Trumpism really stinks.
