Not once did any of us hear Winston Jordan, Guyana’s worst-ever Finance Minister, express regret that his government had granted a tax-free contract to EXXON. Never once did he apologize to the Guyanese people for helping to foist that contract on the Guyanese people, and keeping it a secret for some time. But ever since the President Irfaan Ali-led PPP government abolished all the more-than 350 new tax measures that the APNU/AFC government imposed on people between 2015 and 2020, we have heard him crying that farmers MUST be taxed.
Like Khemraj Ramjattan, who admitted in Parliament what he thought about sugar workers, Jordan also admitted that he believes the PPP government favours farmers because they are supporters of the PPP. It has not dawned on him that farmers are supported by the Government because PPP governments always have prioritized agriculture in the country’s developmental agenda. The PPP’s overall support to agriculture and to farmers has nothing to do with whom farmers politically align with. But, like closing sugar estates, Jordan wants to punish farmers because he is convinced they support the PPP.
Collectively, farmers invest in Guyana more than any private sector enterprise other than EXXON and the oil companies. Rice farmers alone invest more than $50B annually in the economy. When we look at expansion of agriculture under the Irfaan Ali-led Government, farmers and investors in agriculture pour in more than $100B annually into the country’s domestic investment. For this, Jordon wants to punish them.
As agriculture expands, Guyana – which before 2023 had imported almost US$50M in corn and soya meal for feedstock production – is now looking to meet our entire need through local production. Moreover, we expect to become an exporter of corn and soya by 2028. But do not expect anytime soon that the “geniuses” in the PNC and AFC would ever understand the impact of agriculture and the investment farmers make in Guyana’s development. The only thing these “geniuses” see is the opportunity to tax the farmers.
As Guyana’s Food and Nutrition Security 25×25 Program continues to evolve and expand, Guyana and Caricom’s importation of food is reducing. When first announced in 2021, the naysayers laughed and insisted that the 25×25 goal was a wild dream. In fact, Caricom’s import of food has already been reduced by 15%, and the 25% reduction is in sight by the end of 2025. In the process, no country stands to benefit more than Guyana. This means more domestic and foreign investment in agriculture, more jobs created, and more families engaged in entrepreneurial activities.
Instead of recognizing the farmers’ contribution, people like Jordan want to tax them.
Winston Jordan emerged briefly from his hole last week. After waxing out-of-tune with what he deemed “wasteful” infrastructure projects, and after bemoaning the PPP government’s removal of new taxes or measures that increased taxes, more than 350 measures that the PNC-led APNU/AFC government had introduced, he then identified taxation for farmers. If it were up to Jordan, the Government would widen its taxation to further tax farmers, big and small. Thank God, it is not up to Jordan. The Guyanese people, on March 2, 2020, ensured that “More Taxes” Jordan would never again be in a position to punish them with unbearable taxation.
Jordan and his party have an obsession with taxation. They have always — for 28 years before 1992, and between 2015 and 2020 — sought to introduce new taxes or increase existing taxes. In whatever way the PNC could extract more resources out of people’s pockets, they have not been hesitant to do so. Even out of government, they keep talking about more taxes.
Among the many differences between Guyana’s two main political parties, taxation is a fundamental difference. One: the PNC never misses an opportunity to increase tax measures. On the other hand, the PPP always looks to see where they can reduce tax measures. Imagine the optics of GRA officials walking into people’s yards in Region Five, between 2015 and 2020, checking to see how many beds of bora or lettuce or other cash crops they were cultivating for the purpose of imposing taxes on them. Their taxation thirst knew no bounds. And while heaping more tax burdens on people between 2015 and 2020, they took away cash transfer programmes from people, thereby making the tax burdens worse.
Jordan recklessly alleges that the support for agriculture is motivated by political reasons, because farmers are supporters of the PPP. It is the usual dog-whistle. The bottom line is that Jordan’s thirst to tax farmers is motivated by his belief that farmers are Indo-Guyanese who all support the PPP. That most people in Guyana — and certainly the overwhelming percentage of Indo-Guyanese — support the PPP is true; but farmers are not exclusively Indo-Guyanese. The majority of Amerindians are farmers, and it is true that most of them support the PPP. There are many farmers who are Afro-Guyanese. In fact, farming might well be the way most Afro-Guyanese in rural communities earn their living. It might also now be true that many Afro-Guyanese farmers are becoming supporters of the PPP.
When Jordan talks about taxing farmers, he is not just targeting rice and cash crop farmers, he is also talking about livestock farmers. This includes those who produce mutton and chevron meat. In 2020, production was just under 77,000kg. In 2022, production jumped to 110,000kg, a 43% increase. Caricom today imports almost US$40M in mutton and chevron meat annually. The small farmers can inherit this market in the 25×25 initiative. We must incentivize these farmers and other farmers.
The PPP sees this as a priority; the PNC, on the other hand, only sees another group to tax. But “More Tax” Jordan will never again have the opportunity to add another tax on the burden of the Guyanese people.
