NO FRESH IDEAS FROM THE PPP
The People’s National Congress (PNC) ruled Guyana for 28 years, from 1964 to 1992 before it was defeated by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) which held power for 23 years until it too was defeated by the coalition government in May 2015.Even though many in the PPP were of the view that the PNC government had mismanaged the country, the PPP had no fresh ideas or personnel to develop Guyana.
In fact, under the PPP, the country was drowned in corruption, dishonesty, theft of the country’s resources, raping of the treasury and the purchasing of the country’s best ocean front lands below market value. Many in the PPP regime who were poor before 1992 became multimillionaires, if not billionaires overnight.
The leader of the opposition continues to maintain a fatuous line that Guyana had its best days under the 23 years of PPP rule.The occasion of this poignant editorial followed on the heels of his announcement at the recent commemoration of Dr. Jagan’s life at Babu Jaan that the PPP would win five seats and 50,000 votes in the next election. Such a statement is immaterial. It shows that the PPP just does not get it!
There is a new and more discerning type of voter who is concerned with voting on issues and for honest and uncorrupt leaders rather than the racial voting of the past. In other words, they will vote for visionary and practical leaders who are capable of solving the country’s problems.Not surprisingly, the leader of the opposition has very selective memory. He has refused to accept responsibility for the crime wave that wreaked havoc on the country between 2002 and 2007 and the escalation of the illegal drug trade. Between 2000 and 2015, the PPP government presided over some major scandals that have damaged the country’s reputation and set back the economy for decades. Who can forget the massive corruption under the PPP which cost the country billions in loses and made Guyana the second most corrupt country in the Caribbean after Haiti.
So no matter how the PPP and Jagdeo try to twist the facts, they simply cannot fool the people. In 1992, the PPP administration inherited a platform which was built by several years of sacrifice by the Guyanese people and careful economic management of the PNC government which moved the macroeconomic indicators to a seven percent GDP growth rate—the highest in the Caribbean at the time. They have made a mess of it. So for the opposition leader to take full credit for the high levels of growth in the economy after 1992 is disingenuous.
The leader of the opposition and the PPP need to be enlightened that good governments around the world have ceased the foolish practice of throwing out all the plans and programmes of their predecessors, even if some are good. People welcome the continuity in government rather than the old habit of ripping up plans and programmes of previous administrations as the PPP did when it came to office in 1992. They should understand that sensible continuity of some good plans which are in the interest of national development is the new commonsense in governance.
But the art of good government and good governance is appreciating which of your predecessor’s policies are worth keeping.This is exactly what this government has done when it came to office in May 2015. It has kept firmly on the economic course of the past five years and even walked back on its pre-election promise to not conduct any witch hunt or charge anyone in the PPP with corruption without solid evidence to support the charge.
After years of stagnation and anemic growth, the economy is expected to expand by more than three percent this fiscal year and be on an upward trajectory in the coming years. In that regard, the government should be commended, rather than criticized, for supposedly doing what is best for the development of the country and the people.
