In today’s discussion, I chose to deal with an area that is a little outside of my comfort zone – politics. It is more or less – an unorthodox piece of literature, which to my mind, is relevant and appropriate with the view of soliciting, stimulating and inspiring a wider societal discussion, understanding and enlightenment of the inherent fabrics of our political economy. I begin by making this comment because readers of this column would have recognised that unlike other analysts and commentators – I am not a political commentator. Rather, I deal with issues from an objective, factual, empirical and practical standpoint.
It is, however, difficult to ignore the implications of politics in the conduct of any economic policy analysis. In fact, the irony is such that, politicians are charged with the central responsibility to formulate and implement economic policy and by extension, management of the economy. Often times, the Presidential Candidates are not trained economists or highly qualified finance specialists.
In these cases, they rely on the advice of qualified advisors in the field and the Finance Minister – who ought to have the requisite qualifications and experience. As we all know, the current Opposition Leader who is also a former President, is a trained economist while the current leader of the country – the President of the Republic of Guyana, is a historian by virtue of his qualifications and a trained military personnel. But, empirical evidence suggests that despite these factors – whether the Presidential Candidate is an economist or not – the nature and intricacies of politics tend to triumph as the supreme attribute; to the extent where it is likely to blur the objective and professional thinking abilities of politicians in general, and thus shape their political agendas otherwise – that may not be in the best interest of prudential economic governance of the economy.
So what is politics and what is economics? The most basic definition of politics – is it has to do with power and the retention of power. Other basic text book definitions of politics are: Politics is the exercise of power; public allocation of values; resolution of conflict; and politics is the competition of individuals, groups or states pursuing their interests; or, as (Robert Dahl) puts it:
“A political system is any persistent pattern of human relationships that involves power, rule or authority.”
Economics on the other hand is simply the study of the allocation of scarce resources to meet unlimited human wants – and macroeconomics is concerned with the aggregate performance of the entire economic system.
Within this context, and in a reflective manner, I have attempted to somewhat make an assessment of the current political and economic climate in Guyana and to also provide some kind of insight on whether the hypothesis discussed here, is deemed meritorious. In this respect, I highlight a few dominant politically driven events currently – the Guyana Electrions Commission (GECOM) fiasco and a particular speech made by the Head of State recently on one of his recent trips to the US.
In that presentation, the President of Guyana – in his capacity as the leader of the largest political party that has dominated the coalition Government; the central theme was based on their retention of power in 2020. Contrary to this, we saw that the Minister of State, in one of his weekly press conferences and in response to questions raised by media operatives on the matter of the GECOM chairmanship, and more specifically – fears of not having a free and fair general election in 2020: to this he hasten to respond that election is far away and there is much more to do – implying the day to day business and affairs of the country.
Now, I would not regurgitate those two public declarations here – as they are both in the public’s domain. My contention in this regard, nonetheless, is that if one was to examine both speeches and/or missives, one would agree that the two positions – the one taken by the Minister of State and the Head of the State – both contradicted each other, quite logically.
In order to corroborate the essence of the discussion presented here – I present you with two examples stemming from the recently held Business Summit which was organised by the Private Sector Commission. The Head of State in his presentation at that forum, lamented to the Private Sector members – that other countries are investing in Guyana and so, why is it that the Private Sector cannot invest? He further went on to describe the six sisters – the productive sectors namely: gold, bauxite, sugar, rice, fisheries and timber as a ‘curse’. Such a statement is dangerous to make and could pose serious consequences for the economy.
A second example at the same forum, this time a statement from one of the panel members who was representing the political opposition: on the issue of access to financing – raised as a concern at the forum, claimed that the central government has crowded out the Private Sector in the domestic capital market, given that they account for a higher proportion of borrowings relative to the Private Sector and thus competing with the Private Sector as the reason for making it difficult to access capital in the domestic capital market. Nevertheless, this is far from the reality because – in fact, there is excess liquidity in the system and the commercial banks are more than adequately capitalised. This therefore has deemed the Opposition member’s assertion unmeritorious or I should say incorrect.
When it comes to the economic affairs of the country, not everything needs to be politicised as is the case with our politicians on both sides – as it may seem. They need to speak responsibly and objectively on such matters; if, as they project themselves as being serious about developing this country. Suffice to say, some of their actions and positions on key economic matters tell the nation a different story altogether – for those who are intellectually paying attention.
