This 2018 Budget was nothing but economically destructive; it failed to provide measures to effectively empower the working class and the business class. Where are the measures to motivate them to become more productive and to invest more as a means to an end? We are talking about direct policies to influence sustainable economic expansion. What this 2018 Budget does reveal, is that Guyana has a government that is out of ideas and one that is wedded to a programme of expanding the Public Sector funded by more borrowing and more taxation (property taxes going up, that is now a given). The entire strategy of this budget can be coined in one phrase – “crowding out of the Private Sector to make way for Granger’s Public Sector”.
The most interesting declaration made by the Minister was that “we did not promise that the Good Life would be achieved in our first term…” Is that so? I suspect Mr Winston Jordan is yet to be schooled in what is a political manifesto and what is in the APNU/AFC 2015 manifesto. A political manifesto is one that presents its plan for the term in office; in Guyana’s case, five years. In President David Granger’s message to the nation in the APNU/AFC manifesto, he said in his final paragraph: “This Manifesto PROMISES a bright future for all. We assure all Guyanese…. that we shall work towards ensuring that we all have a good life.” His words, not mine!
So this 2018 Budget exposes that all along those promises were nothing else but bogus from Mr Granger. He has done very much as the CEO of this counterfeit coalition of political opportunists to deny the nation national unity for all, economic empowerment for all, and social progress for all. Rather, all along the game plan concocted in the Bahamas was to set up a pension plan for a gang of a few dozen of mostly septuagenarians and octogenarians so that they can secure the good life for themselves and their householders from the sweat of the working class. So, yes the good life is happening in Guyana, but for the immediate family members in Camp Granger and Camp Nagamootoo. But the ordinary man and woman in Guyana are catching hell economically in a nation so well endowed with richness.
But what was most startling was that the economy fell short of its projection by a whole percentage point in 2017, landing now at approximately 2.9 per cent and I am absolutely convinced that it will fall to 2.7 per cent or 2.8 per cent by the time the final numbers are announced in June 2018 when the Minister issues his final 2017 numbers. It is clear that the crowding-out principle of expanding the Public Sector at the expense of the Private Sector is not working. Therefore, why this arrogance from the Cabinet Room?
Such dogmatism is an assault on this promised good life, so I just cannot understand this capricious strategy from Mr Jordan. Is this some kind of starve and feed strategy imposed on the population to achieve obsequiousness and sycophancy similar to what we saw in Venezuela and Zimbabwe? It is important that the people band together resolutely and shower condescension on this 2018 Budget because it is a document designed to further destroy the economy.
As an example, if one observes the immunisation coverage in support of a basic right – the right to life, one can see all the indicators exposing a fact that today under President Granger, our newborns are worse off than they were in 2014. On Page 86 of the Budget, you can find indicators that illustrate that the immunisation rate for diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, yellow fever, polio, and tuberculosis are all materially down in 2017 compared to 2014. As an example in 2014, some 100 per cent of the one-year-olds in Guyana were vaccinated for MMR and yellow fever. In 2017, that rate is now 69 per cent. Are we serious as a nation? We have just under a billion dollars to send Moses and Granger and their Cabinet colleagues gallivanting to all sorts of silly conferences, but we do not have dollars to immunise, protect and preserve the future of the nation?
The only good thing in this budget is that the Minister listened to people like Jonathan Yearwood and Christopher Ram and all the others who protested against the brain tax and good sense prevailed. Yippee! The VAT on education was removed that was imposed by Mr Jordan 12 months ago. For that one singularly good thing, I am grateful to the Minister.
But in the general scheme of things, this is nothing but a mostly bogus budget that expanded the imposition of centralism in Guyana, that materially contributed to a situation where the ordinary man feels undervalued. At the end of the day, without the ordinary man on your side, you must and will fall politically, economically and socially. Carry on, Jordan; you will be the undoing of President Granger and his intellectually bankrupt cabal because the people will remember you for this one. The Journey to the Good Life Continues – NOT!
