Unfortunately, a few key players in the Guyana Private Sector are advising me privately if they can reflect on the last decade, today more Guyanese business people feel marginalised and cannot benefit from the fruits of the economy. My immediate reaction to that group was, what fruits? Is a 2.2 per cent growth rate in 2017 tangible adequate fruits? Some 10 years ago, the economy was growing at seven per cent. That was something to consider. Today, in 2018, the economy is expected to grow by some 1.9 per cent so there is nothing to look forward to 
tangibly. This is a hard guava season; compliments of the Granger regime.
The political class must recognise if they want to hog all the fruits for their friends and family, there will be consequences. And those consequences shall be grave as more people come to the realisation that there is little in their rice pots while the fat cats in Team Granger are eating all the meat. People are observing how the members of the Granger Cabinet are living Cadillac lifestyles today which does not reconcile to what is happing to the farming families, the hinterland families, the families of ordinary public servants, teachers, and so many other hard-working families. From that observation, people are slowly admitting that “THE BEAR” on this Guyanese economy has been let loose and they will hold Granger for this economic destruction. In such a situation, conservation of one’s cash, moving your money into the black market (off the books) and shipping one’s savings overseas will accelerate and this will complicate the process economic expansion. Such a reality will result in aggregate demand being stifled, consumer spending stagnating, investment plummeting, and productivity flattening.
Does President Granger really know what he is doing when he exhibits such grave indifference to reality? His lack of action on a menu of progressive public policies is causing the engine of growth to stutter. There is nothing in the 2018 Budget that I can find that represent any measure to stimulate an expansion in aggregate demand or enhance productivity in the those six sisters – rice, sugar, bauxite, gold, forestry, and fisheries. His philosophy is one grounded in spending on non-productive activities that do not enhance the nation’s value creation efforts; executive travel – GY$1 billion; GDF – GY$11 billion; and so on. One might say the President is lost.
President Granger is so far out to sea on the process of transforming Guyana, it is becoming even more clear that there is no way he will be able to swim back before 2020. This is the major dilemma this nation faces today in 2018. Over the next two years, all sources of assets and cash shall be raided and plundered. A classic example is the state of the ACTUAL GOLD RESERVES under the control of the Bank of Guyana. (see graph below)
The evidence revealed that since May 2015 when the Team Granger arrived in office, the value of the gold bars under the control of the Bank of Guyana deteriorated by some 85 per cent to GY$2.2 billion. If you notice, this destruction only started to happen from May 2016. Some might want to assign this asset destruction issue to the price of gold, but the gold prices actually increased between May 2016 to January 2018. So that cannot be the reason. This steep plunge in the value of gold under the control of the Central Bank begs the question, is the Granger regime selling off the nation’s gold assets to finance their wild spending?
Why a government should not raid the Central Bank
Any Central Bank functions in a world of uncertainty. As a safeguard, its asset base used to conduct monetary policy and promote internal financial stability. Guyana is facing a creeping increase in oil prices, and there is a real danger of an incoming oil shock becoming a reality. This is where the asset side of the Bank of Guyana balance sheet becomes key and vital. Deterioration of the balance sheet of any Central Bank cripples the ability of a nation to stabilise the external sector, preserve value internally and meet international financial obligations. In plain terms, the weaker the balance sheet of the Central Bank, the higher the chances the nation will become uncreditworthy. Guyana having evolved from such a history under Burnham and thus we cannot claim ignorance of the consequences of a weak balance sheet at the Central Bank.
These are elementary stuff, so I am deeply concerned that the Minister of Finance is not considering alternative options on how he deals with this issue. But clearly, he seems to be not getting it!
