An effective leader always thinks about the “WE” rather than the “I”. Reading the Alliance For Change’s column in the Kaieteur News of January 21, 2018, exposed that Guyana is doomed once we have such low calibre thinkers in Government. Nowhere in that column can I find language that offers answers to the questions – what needs to be done? How to progress these actions on this sugar issue with human awareness?
I would say such political trite has no place in public discourse but unfortunately, Agriculture Minister Noel Holder went to Parliament and augmented such banality with patent falsehood when he stated that the Granger regime consulted adequately with all stakeholders before it took those draconian decisions in the sugar issue. That statement was a total and absolute falsehood.
At least one would expect that if the decision was to shut down all these factories, then Team Granger would have the common decency to at least pay the full severance benefits to those who were placed on the breadline in accordance with the law. But Minister Holder will have none of it. And when you think that is where the subterfuge and deception on this sugar issue ended, up comes Finance Minister Winston Jordan who uttered an extremely uninformed and disingenuous position that payment of the full severance will adversely impact inflation without offering practical context.
Academically, all Government expenditure will have an impact on inflation, especially the billion dollars travel budget for Team Granger that was assigned for in the 2018 Budget. Equally, the even more reckless expenditure of hundreds of millions to continue the outfit of State House 1 and 2 on Main Street along with all the eight-car motorcade for President Granger and Prime Minister Nagamootoo. But you’ve got to be an economics moron to think that the Central Bank of Guyana cannot adequately influence monetary policy to combat these bumps in Government expenditure. It is elementary Minister Jordan and it is called contractionary monetary policy.
The evidence is there to prove that under President Jagdeo in 1999 and 2000, the Armstrong Commission instructed that 31.6 per cent and 26.6 per cent respectively be paid out as wage increases across the entire Public Sector in those years. Jagdeo agreed with the findings of that Commission and paid these significant increases in public service wages but yet the inflation rate over the period 1999-2011 averaged 6.5 per cent. If one was to do a similar comparison between 2006-2008, when the average wage increases were six per cent, the average inflation rate was 8.5 per cent. Why the variance? Full credit had to go to the Bank of Guyana for contractionary monetary policy during 1999-2001 to steer the inflation rate into single digit after an aggregate wage increase totalling over 50 per cent in a two-year period.
There are those who might say that the Minister of Finance was a bit premature in his statement or that he took the attitude of a failed academic who thinks everything stands still while he thinks about what to do. But he must exercise greater caution on his public statement or else he can pigeonhole himself into a corner, as a very ignorant “fella” when we all know there are three ways to combat the possible inflation using the Bank of Guyana.
Would the Minister rather social implosion because of these delayed payments in the sugar belt which can redound to much more than the measly G$5 billion that he his cribbing about today? Please get some backbone man and do the right thing!
All Guyana would like to see an end to the conflict being created by this Granger regime inside the sugar belt and thus me more than many welcomed the initiative when President Granger invited and met the sugar unions. It was a progressive step in the right direction. Unfortunately, I was reliably advised that Granger left the meeting prematurely. How more irresponsible can a public official be? Here you have all the key players in the room and you prematurely quit the meeting? Would Burnham have done that? Certainly not!
When you have the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union in the room, you roll up your sleeves and go to work until a sensible middle ground is reached. A good leader is someone who has a vision, can bring common sense to the real issue, can relate to the plight of those in the room and have the mental fortitude to invent the future and bring the conflict to an end. Running from the room was nothing but intellectually short-sightedness. These delayed decisions and the knee-jerk reactions from Granger are causing great harm to the nation. What is his obsession if not solving the big social-economic-political issues in the nation? In the final analysis, President Granger’s leadership on the sugar issue remains ineffective.
