Jeffrey should stop trying to revise history

Dear Editor, Henry Jeffrey has joined with the APNU apologists to try to deny and misrepresent the achievements by the PPP/Civic administration. He responded to my letter in the Stabroek News of May 22, 2017, in which I put, in a nutshell, the state of Guyana’s economy when the PNC/APNU took power in May 2015 (‘Under the PPP/C Guyana had the greatest growing economy in the region’). My letter was a response to the more blatant distortions of the regime in saying that what it inherited from the PPP/C administration was a broken economy.

Henry Jeffrey’s ‘Futures Notes’ column of May 31, is a classic example of the kind of historical revisionism that the PNC and its acolytes, including the AFC ones, are busy engaged in every day. In the meantime they fail to discharge their responsibility to actually govern the country and manage the economy in a way which would ensure the prosperity they misled a large part of the Guyanese people into believing would follow their election to office.

Nothing that Dr Jeffrey says negates the fact that from 2006 to 2014, Guyana had its longest period of uninterrupted positive growth. What is more, this period of uninterrupted growth was achieved at a time when the world was reeling from the global economic and financial crisis, as well as the fuel and food price crisis.

Nothing that Dr Jeffrey says can remove the fact that in 1992, the PPP inherited an economy saddled with external debt, with nothing to show for it. There were no external reserves accumulated from this borrowing spree, there was no infrastructure constructed from it, there were no social services as evidence of investments made with the funds borrowed. Plain and simple, this debt had accumulated with no tangible evidence of what had been done with the money borrowed.

Dr Jeffrey describes the rebasing of the GDP as the waving of a magic wand. Rebasing of the GDP was no magic wand. The reality is that the rebasing of the economy, which was done in a thorough manner scrutinized by our external partners, disclosed that during the period from 1991 to 2006 the structure of the economy had altered fundamentally and its size had grown significantly, even more than the post 1992 recorded growth had previously indicated. And so, the rebasing provided even further vindication of the progress made in diversifying and growing the economy under successive PPP/C governments post 1992.

Dr Jeffrey, in trying to land a low blow, noted that “...as late as 1997, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that ‘Average real GDP growth rate is projected at 6% a year in 19972000 and about 4.5% a year thereafter’. He went on to say rather gleefully, “… as it turned out, average annual GDP growth was 0.4% from 1998-2005”.

Cheddi Jagan used to say that half-truths are often worse than outright lies. This, unfortunately, is what Dr Jeffrey was engaged in ‒ peddling half-truths, in his piece of May 31.

Dr Jeffrey knows the only reason that was not achieved was because the PNC launched a massive attack on our democracy after the 1997 elections. There was burning and looting, and people were beaten. This onslaught (remember the call to kith and kin?) led to a forensic audit of the 1997 elections by Caricom, headed by Mr Ulric Cross. What was the conclusion? They said they found not a single fraudulent ballot. This confirmed that this was a deliberate attack on our democracy.

Dr Jeffrey has also conveniently forgotten the massive floods of 2005-06 which wiped out a large part of our GDP.

These occurrences make the achievements even more impressive. This maybe to the chagrin of the PNC/APNU apologists.

I never expected Dr Jeffrey to take things out of context to prove an argument he should never have made in the first place. Indeed, had it not been for that engineered period of violent destabilization our economy and our country would have gone much farther along the path of socio-economic development.

Dr Jeffrey again tried to distort when he said that in the 1980s the economy was in a bad state. That is true but it was in a bad state since mid-1970s. A look at the economy would show that we were already in crisis in 1974. It was only the sugar levy introduced then that postponed the collapse. However, by 1978, that was not enough to mask the problem. The economy virtually collapsed. That led to the banning of the importation of essential items, including foodstuff.

Clearly, therefore, it is not me, but Dr Jeffrey who has been engaging in using “isolated truths”, as he put it.

On another matter Dr Jeffrey said my position could prevent us from “…coming to grips with the gravamen of our situation… and affects attempts to find an equitable formula for our living together in peace and prosperity...” I totally disagree with that. We cannot find that “peace and prosperity” if we do not recognize truths. This is the problem with the Jeffreys of this world. They are looking for formulae, ignoring the people’s desires and wishes. It is typical intellectual arrogance. In fact, it is the posture adopted by him and the PNC/APNU apologists that is really preventing us from “coming to grips with the gravamen of our situation” by distorting history and deceiving their supporters into believing that every challenge they face today is somehow the making of the PPP/Civic.

For us to achieve that peace and prosperity, we must have all political parties committing to multi-racial, multi-ethnic policies. At the foundation of this is free and fair elections. What is the real purpose of a Ministry of Citizenship? Why is the President refusing to choose a person from the lists given to him after the Leader of the Opposition consulted widely with civil society?

This is where Dr Jeffrey can make a contribution and add his voice to defending democracy of which free and fair elections is at the heart; it is indispensable.

Incidentally, this gentleman has not said anything to support the many dismissed persons. Nothing about the constant violation of the rule of law and our constitution; nothing about the subversion of parliamentary democracy as its Speaker chooses to halt and discourage debates and discussions in our National Assembly.

Instead of trying to rewrite and revise history, Dr Jeffrey should urge his friends in the PNC/APNU to spend their energies trying to actually deliver on the multitude of false promises they made to the Guyanese people, whose generosity might have helped get them votes in 2015, but whose continued non-delivery will surely see them booted out of office come 2020. Yours faithfully, Donald Ramotar