The current anxieties about the Granger Administration have much to do with the real fear that Guyana is undergoing a return to People’s National Congress (PNC) excesses. For those of us who lived through the Burnham era, the signs are clear as the country’s economy grinds to a halt, and as we watch the return of institutionalised racism, State corruption, cronyism and nepotism, and worry over the scarcity of the US dollar.
Unfortunately, we have been here before and when the PNC/Alliance For Change (AFC) coalition was drumming its elections campaign message about forgetting the past, I and others pointed out the inherent dangers in that message: that it was ominous and signalled an intent to return the country to that inglorious period of Guyanese history when the PNC was last in power.
Commercial business in the city has fallen off about 30 to 50 per cent. Business is down even from January which is usually the slowest month for sales after the year-end holiday spending.
With sugar and rice, the traditional export earners, attracting no Government support to keep them viable until there is restructuring to replace any revenue loss, there is real concern about the growing number of taxes that are being designed to make taxation the country’s main revenue earner.
Winston Churchill said, “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” Just so.
Every good government tries to lower the burden of taxation on its citizens. They accomplish this by crafting policies to spur manufacturing and industry through tax incentives and tax holidays, and by attracting new investments that would create employment and expand the country’s home-based and export portfolios.
What currently obtains is the direct opposite. A shrinking business and manufacturing sector will result in retrenchment of workers, less spending power, higher crime, less imports, less duties collected, and the beginning of a vicious cycle that will result in progressive economic retardation.
Oil revenue earnings are years away. And why, when the country can be a food producer and a value-added manufacturer if provided with cheap energy or subsidised power and tax incentives, would any Government forgo present certainties for a future probability?
What happens to Guyana and all its potential while we wait on the oil to gush? Or is the squeeze on rice, sugar and the business sector informed by more sinister motives?
Because of the Granger Government’s serial corruptions and financial mismanagement, it is not surprising that opinion polls project a win for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) at the 2020 general elections.
Understandably, many balk at this idea given the PPP/C’s own alleged corruptions and highhanded manner of doing the people’s business while in office. However, another round of PPP Administration might well be faced with an electorate that is now willing to coalesce across ethnic and party lines on issues that affect them.
The protests against the city parking meters, the Wales Estate closure and Value Added Tax (VAT) on private school fees have attracted supporters from every race, class and political group who have united in peaceful demonstrations for a common cause.
This is a marked change from the Burnham era when any dissent was met with State-sponsored thuggery, terror and violence. But the young people who went out to “vote like a boss” and to forget a past they never experienced are still managing to get a first-hand taste of that period.
President David Granger is doing enough – the militarisation of the State; the ethnic cleansing of the public service; the economic mismanagement – to place the PNC stamp of identity on the country’s governance and peaceful protests that do not threaten the power base actually puts a kindly, indulgent face on his Administration even as responsible, lawful and accountable Government is steadily eroded away.
Still, in a country where criticism and dissent have almost always translated into violence and feral blasts, the indulgence is a welcome departure as new methods of keeping Government honest are tested. The issues being currently protested are legitimate and not based on spurious political claims as happened during the PPP/C Administration when public protests were mostly PNC-led and scarred by ethnic violence and arson.
Whether this new brand of protest action will be sustained and can develop into an effective tool to deter unjust public policies and actions in a truly non-partisan and democratic manner will be the true test of the support for issue-based politics.
The PPP, if it expects to be the next elected Government, should take note and be prepared to be held just as accountable.
