The Making of a New Guyana:
Where Perception of Inequality Drives Government’s Agenda
Tara Singh

David Hinds has raised the controversial issue of the creation of an ethnic state by the PPP. This is a theory advanced to give cover to the blatant racial discrimination practiced by the APNU-AFC government. Hinds and others claim that only Indians benefitted from the PPP’s rule. Former President Bharrat Jagdeo has pointed out on several occasions that Africans have been better off under the PPP than at any other time in the history of the country. Jagdeo has challenged them (Hinds and cohorts) to a fact-based debate to defend their claim. Their (coalition) reason runs like this; “Why should we?” When the PPP was in power, they favored their own group (Indians) and not ours (Africans)!” This is the kind of perverted philosophical underpinning that guides the coalition’s policies and practices. Let’s examine their record so far. The coalition advisors and are known to have been making outlandish claims like the PPP was allegedly siphoning off more than the country‘s budget (of around $(G) 200 billion) annually into corruption! This is the ridiculous of the most ridiculous.

Over 5,000 workers have lost their jobs in less than 2 years of the APNU-AFC coalition’s rule. More workers are being laid off as the economy worsens. The 200 new taxes, including on water, electricity, education and health, that have been imposed upon Guyanese are crushing their ability to survive in an increasingly hostile environment (of fear, intimidation, and erosion of free speech) created by the APNU-AFC government. The morale of the people, including their own supporters is very low; despondency and resignation afflict their minds, as they watch hopelessly as their future is slipping rapidly from their grips.

Former Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy who delivered the keynote speech at GOPIO’s annual dinner in New York on April 28, 2017 said categorically that the decision to close Wales, Rosehall and Enmore sugar estates, is purely a political one. He told the capacity audience that when the coalition was in the opposition they had proclaimed that sugar was “too big to fail,” and if elected, they would increase sugar workers’ wages by 20%. He also said that the sugar workers had not received their annual API for the past two years, neither did they receive any increase in wages, compared with other government sectors that received generous increases. “This is part of their (government) effort to hurt sugar workers and break the backbone of the PPP support base.”
In the sugar industry, as happens in other sectors, there are different signals emerging. The 2015 COI into sugar did not recommend any closure of sugar estates at this time. But Clive Thomas decided to close Wales immediately even before reviewing the findings of the COI. Granger concurred with Thomas. In reviewing a Guysuco policy document, Felicia Persaud states; “I was amazed to see that the sugar corporation was advising the state…that in wooing private buyers to take over Skeldon Estate, it was suggested that potential investors be told about the lucrative opportunities to set up a refinery to produce white sugar for the Caribbean market. While publicly we are told by Guysuco officials that the estate is a time bomb, the private interests are being told seemingly a different story about the windfall they would have should they purchase the estate.”

If Rosehall and Enmore estates are closed, then another 8000 workers would lose their jobs, plus their combined families (totaling about 32,000 livelihoods) will be forced onto the breadline, sunk into deeper poverty and untold distress. Increasingly we note that the so-called good life is only for a few thousands of the coalition members, their political investors, and their supporters. The lives of sugar workers and others will be transformed into living nightmares.

We have said all along that certain strategic industries like sugar and bauxite that are deeply woven into our history and social fabric cannot be measured in terms of cost benefit analysis alone. Other factors are crucial like the dire need to keep communities and families together. We had also suggested that sugar be given a 3-year turn-around time, prior to which re-structuring plans should be advanced, including diversification. At the end of the 3 year period, an evaluation of performance should be conducted, and if the industry can’t break even, then closure or divestment could become an option. Expending 5% of the national budget to save the sugar industry is not a great sacrifice. Sugar had saved other sectors for many decades and other sectors should now come to its assistance. To save 18,000 jobs and over 100,000 livelihoods, will be a remarkable act.

It seems that leadership is lacking. Even some PNC supporters are now asking the question that we have been asking for some time now: “Is Granger in charge?” Or, is it “Harmon, Basil Williams, or Clive Thomas?” Clive Thomas is their economic czar and chief architect of the killing of the sugar industry. Granger bows in deference to whatever decisions Thomas makes. And the government’s chief legal officer, Basil Williams is allowed to indulge in constitutional abuses with reckless abandon, including the abuse of women in particular, and Granger cannot condemn such obnoxious behavior. Yes, this is the government that had said, when they were in the opposition, that if elected they would avoid all the pitfalls of the PPP and lead a clean and accountable government. This is the government that said that the President had too much power and once in power they will, within the first 100 days, establish a Constitutional Reform Committee which will table draft amendments to Parliament within 9 months.

Despite Moses Nagamootoo’s earlier ranting that President Granger as well as his chief advisor and confidante Joseph Harmon, has too much power, constitutional reforms are not their priority. That will take a back seat until Granger completes the process of re-allocating resources between the two major ethnic groups, Indians and Africans, by utilizing various methods such as taxation, award of contracts to party supporters and political investors, seizing lands owned by Indians and PPP supporters, hiring of predominantly Africans, firing predominantly Indians and Amerindians and others thought to be sympathetic to the PPP. Granger’s advisors are putting forth the ridiculous theory that Jagdeo and the PPP created an ethnic state that favored Indians. They speculate that since Indians in the private sector appear to be better off than Africans, the state must have been responsible for that perceived disparity. What research has Hinds or others conducted to come up with this bizarre claim?

Indian and other ethnic groups’ businesses have not prospered because of the PPP. In fact, most of the businesses were antagonistic towards the PPP. That’s one reason why those businesses raised over $300 million towards the APNU-AFC election campaign. We hold no brief for any business, but do appreciate that these people have gone where others had dared not. In any part of the world where ever people take risks, their rewards or failures are likely to be greater than the average person. Now, what has stopped the coalition supporters from taking such risks? We also look forward to the day when the coalition will initiate an agriculture development project to benefit perhaps primarily their supporters. Well, they have claimed that all the PPP land development schemes had benefitted primarily PPP supporters. They are working to correct this perceived distortion in land allocation. Burnham and Hoyte was apparently not as savvy as them!

There is another theory that Granger’s advisors are advancing to justify their claim to existing lands purportedly occupied by PPP supporters by asserting “ancestral land” status to Africans. Eric Phillips said that Africans were in Guyana before Amerindians. Granger don’t have to seize the lands of PPP supporters to give these to their supporters. There is enough land in Guyana for everyone.

The Hinds’ theory provides cover to Granger’s policy in ensuring that his party supporters get most of the state contracts by flouting procurement rules, minimizing the role of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC), and resorting to the ‘sole source’ method. Quality of work is not the norm anymore. For example, the foundation of the Indian monument at Palmayra collapsed, as the contractor did not follow design specifications. The Region 6 Chairman said that there are so many experienced contractors in Berbice with the requisite expertise that have been overlooked for the Palmayra project. Instead, the contract was given to one of their supporters in Linden. There are many other examples of poor quality and corrupted contracts that have been executed by the coalition such as the $(G) 605 million drug deal by the GPHC, the notorious Sussex Street Bond fiasco and the Durban Park project. In fact, the hoisting of the Guyana flag on the occasion of Guyana’s 51st independence anniversary will be at the Stabroek Square and not at Durban Park that was specially built for events like this.

This is a waste of state resources. We hope that the government’s enforcers, SARA and SOCU, will begin to investigate these excesses. Right now, these law enforcement bodies are just going after PPP leaders and supporters. But this is the new Guyana. Instead of “the good life, Guyanese are getting the good lies.” We believe that the government’s attitude as well as its advisors is also influenced by the prospects of oil wealth. Eric Phillips had said that if Indians had not come to Guyana, the oil wealth would have been shared only between the Africans and Amerindians. We remind Phillips that oil is the Jagdeo’s and the PPP’s brand.
We say that to uproot large sugar communities and other sectors (such logging and rice) based on a discredited Hinds theory of “Ethnic Trap” and related false philosophical premises, and to shatter the livelihoods of thousands of workers and their families, is the most wicked, inconsiderate and brutal act that any government can carry out towards its citizens. And when there are no alternative jobs, this would lead to unprecedented social upheaval and untold suffering. The government must constructively engage stakeholders and the opposition to save workers’ jobs, the economy, and the nation.