Granger shows lack of understanding of national development

IT is undisputed that the national budgets presented for the last twenty years by the PPP/C governments have delivered the following results: socio-economic programmes that have overwhelmingly brought benefits to the Guyanese people, thereby elevating their economic holdings, while at the same time enhancing their social esteem; providing an enabling environment for investment, through institutional regulatory measures, and various incentives that have eliminated impediments against doing business in Guyana; and massive rebuilding of infrastructure, that has been a central support of its transformative and modernisation programme.

However, there are many within the political opposition who have had great difficulty accepting these significant and commendable achievements, albeit with a grudge. As well as another category, from within this very strange parliamentary mix, calling themselves peoples representative, who surprisingly continues to display a frightening ignorance as to what such development entails, particularly the obligatory necessity of sustaining such a programme.
David Granger, despite his well-known academic pedigree, definitely displays a serious lack of understanding as to what entails national development policies, and their means of continuity. As leader of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) who has national leadership aspirations, this continued lack of incomprehensibility must by now convey to the national body politic, inclusive to his party’s numerous supporters, the conclusiveness as to his unsuitability for leadership.
For him to declare in a post-budget statement, that “this is a maintenance budget” displays a blinkered knowledge of the imperatives of national development, and what such means for a country and its people.
Granger needs no reminder that under the former Peoples National Congress (PNC) illegal regime, under which he once served in the pivotal position as national security adviser, that the national asset base had become the victim of abysmal care, and shameful neglect. Thus by the end of the 1980s, virtually all of its components had become obliterated. This is a record of fact, and is therefore irrefutable.
Such a revealing scandal drew the frank and candid observations of a well-known West Indian international cricket commentator, about the state of the capital city’s roads at that time. There was even an earlier comment, in 1972, made by a visiting overseas-based Guyanese health worker who described the then country’s mental health hospital and other facets of the state health system, as primitive. These are undeniable truths, with the former criticism attracting the displeasure of a then very senior PNC government potentate, ever since deceased.
Under the PPP/C administration, not only has the national asset base been restored, but it has expanded four fold, as part of the socio-economic development policies to meet the needs of the people, as well as that of the modernisation process. The number of schools, hospitals and health centres, roads, bridges and culverts, built throughout the ten administrative regions is an unchallenged testimony as how vastly different Guyana has now become, as compared to those unproductive and repressive years of PNC dictatorial rule.
It stands to good reason that any credible government that would have done so much for the country that it had removed from  decades of neglect, restoring its respectability, while in the process taking it to the level of developing nation status, would want to ensure that it continues to service its asset base, assuring its sustained longevity.
The fact that Granger must be reminded of is that the government has the highest regard for the labour of the Guyanese workers and their paid taxes, which forms a most integral part of paying for this country’s development. Had this been of even the slightest consideration of the former PNC administration, greater care would have been taken to maintain the nation’s assets during their infamous reign.
National assets have to be maintained, as they are the raison d’etre and cornerstone of every State’s development ethos.