THE SOCIAL CONTRACT – A SECOND LOOK
January 13, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features/Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
According to APNU, its “social contract” is a means of combining the talents of a wide constituency so as to creating conditions of social cooperation and to address a wide range of problems such as the increase in crime, youth unemployment and protests by trade unions.
This is essentially the rationale that APNU advances for its proposal of a social contract. This social contract, in effect, allows for political and social cooperation to solve problems facing the country and to advance economic progress.
Following the 1992 elections victory by the PPPC, which ended some twenty four years of political dictatorship and mismanagement of the economy, the Carter Center proposed that the broad talents of Guyanese be brought together to formulate a National Development Strategy. This strategy, it was argued, would then form the basis of donor financing for the projects that would be required to advance the strategy.
Over three hundred exceptionally talented Guyanese combined their efforts to develop a National Development Strategy, the most comprehensive development manifesto ever developed in the country. These three hundred odd experts were drawn from a wide range of disciplines and across political persuasions. The NDS represented the first time ever in the history of the country that such a broad range of talented Guyanese had worked together on any development strategy.
All of the previous development strategies were impositions by governments, done without any meaningful consultations with the people or their representatives. From the Kaldor Budget to the Feed Clothe and House the Nation Strategy to the numerous Enhanced Structural Adjustment Programmes of later years, all of the major plans designed to guide the economy of the country were developed by a handful of persons and imposed on the nation. The National Development Strategy represented the first major effort at bringing together the talents of a broad range of Guyanese to develop a development strategy for the country.
When it was completed, the PNC refused to accept the strategy and went so far as to insult the efforts of the hundreds of Guyanese who were part of the strategy by describing the final product as the handiwork of the Carter Center. The PNC poured scorned on this social contract.
The Carter Center which had brokered the strategy tried to salvage a compromise. It wanted a plan that was broadly agreeable to the main political and social stakeholders of the country. The support of the PNC which had gained close to 43% of the votes cast in the 1997 elections, the Carter Center, felt would help the plan to gain broad acceptance by the people of Guyana and by the international donor community. But the PNC would not accept the strategy.
Eventually, a compromise was brokered in which the PNC agreed to have Dr. Kenneth King, who was responsible for developing the failed Feed Cloth and House the National Development Plan, review the NDS. As part of this review, King was required to impose timelines which was one of the criticisms made of the original National Development Strategy.
Dr. King did complete his review and in it he made adjustments to the original NDS. Those adjustments called for economic growth of 9% over an extended period of time. This was of course an impossibility in a small economy like Guyana. King’s final version was never going to go anywhere because of the high growth rates he proposed. There still however remained the original NDC which had outlined detailed policies for each sector and which could still be pursued within the broad framework of King’s revised strategy.
By this time of course, USAID had begun to intervene in the economic management of the economy; Cheddi Jagan had passed on and Bharrat Jagdeo had assumed the presidency. There was a great deal of ambivalence by the then government over what to do with King’s revised strategy. Even the opposition parties did not show too much enthusiasm about the revised plan.
The prescriptions of the World Bank and the IMF had continued to take center stage and were seen as being at odds with the approach of the NDS. The Jagdeo administration opted to go the route of the Washington Consensus and that marked the end of the NDS forever.
If only Hoyte had not rejected the efforts of the over three hundred Guyanese who had cooperated on the NDS, that master plan would have seen the light of day.
APNU now wants to resurrect the original social contract that led to the NDS. It wants to bring together the board talents of Guyanese to help address some of the problems of the country and to plan for economic progress. APNU now supports a process that it rejected years ago.
The NDS is still on the shelves. It would be unfortunate if such a great piece of work is left to gather dust. It needs updating.
Perhaps, the Donald Ramotar administration may want to invite back all the experts that cooperated on the strategy to update it in light of the new economic and international circumstances so that the combined talents of hundreds of Guyanese would not be left to gather woodworm. Would APNU agree to that?
