PPP/C’S gift to this nation

This was promised by former President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo at the annual luncheon held at Camp Ayanganna on Friday, 19 December, 2008. Dr. Jagdeo had pledged his Government’s commitment to social development, and had promised to move ahead with developmental initiatives already started – which included the Berbice River Bridge, several diagnostic centres under construction, and an ophthalmology centre, among a plethora of other things.

Warning that the Guyanese nation has to be cautious in its response to the global financial turmoil, which has resulted in severe global social turmoil, the then President had warned that following other countries in unveiling stimulus packages and other programmes could prove inimical to the best interests of our country.

According to Dr. Jagdeo, “anti-cyclical spending” does not work well in small countries.

Since then, many other projects have been completed, as Guyana’s development galloped like a runaway horse, despite the opposition’s continuous efforts to impede this nation’s progress under a PPP/C administration.

When President Donald Ramotar took office, he vowed continuity, because PPP/C governance is based on successive PPP/C manifestos; and the focus has not shifted, nor has the optimal goalposts been changed.

President Ramotar, on assuming office in 2011, reiterated his Government’s commitment to continue putting mechanisms in place to lessen the impact of the global financial crunch; but he also warned that we, collectively as a nation, have to be cognizant that Guyana is not immune to the deleterious effects of what has transpiring in the global economy, because our country is a net exporter of several commodities that are already taking a hit in external markets as a result of the financial crisis.

The Government is intent on circumventing disadvantageous implications to our enabling synergies to deliver on optimum social and other services, despite contracted foreign exchange earnings which may result from the steep drop in global commodity prices, because we are net exporters of rice, sugar, bauxite, gold, and forestry products.

Export earnings from these commodities are a major source of our national income, and a drop in the demand for these commodities would result in a drop in national production; which would, in turn, cause severe dislocations in many areas.

The external impacts, coupled with the opposition’s anti-development thrust have, in conjunction, delayed implementation of the hydro-power project and other transformational projects.

Government has, over the years, under advisement from bankers, insurance companies, economists, and other experts and professionals, continued to implement several ameliorating mechanisms to minimize and mitigate, if not altogether constrain, the destabilizing impacts of the global financial meltdown, which are creating dislocations in the social construct of some of the most powerful nations in the world.

The three largest centres of the developed world — the USA, Europe, and Japan — went into severe recession even while our tiny nation has been recording a continuum of growth. In the USA alone, approximately 10 million people are in bankruptcy, and are losing their homes and other properties because they cannot pay their loans; and two million persons have already lost their jobs. These figures have been replicated in various dimensions across the world.

Guyana is, however, continuing its housing drive, with incremental increase in annual budgetary allocations to continue expanding low-income housing; and all other social sectors have advanced by leaps and bounds in service to the nation.

Successive PPP/C presidents have adumbrated some of the interventions and initiatives, in keeping with Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s vision and the PPP/C’s Manifesto that the Government has been pursuing and implementing to create comfort and developmental zones for the people of this nation, given the constraining variables extant in the prevailing climate of political opportunism of destabilizing elements; a mainly hostile media and judiciary, which often pursue agendas inimical to the national good; a crime wave fuelled by the encouragement of those self-serving pretenders, who preach anarchy in the land; and a global financial landscape that can overwhelm small economies like ours, among other detrimental variables.

At various fora, whether national, regional or international, President Ramotar has outlined the achievements of an international nature that have placed Guyana on the world map in the leadership quotient, among them being the pursuit of “A New Global Human Order,” which could be the formulation to achieve the MDGs; Guyana’s fight for the restructured European-driven EPA; and its championship of “avoidable deforestation” to ameliorate the impacts of climate change, already causing havoc in nations worldwide.

All of these initiatives are creating avenues whereby our social services can be enhanced even further, despite the global financial meltdown.

The PPP/C Government’s commitment to improvement of the lives and lifestyles of Guyanese is a gift to this nation that will reverberate in posterity for generations to come.

excerpts from the Guyana Chronicle