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FM
Former Member

There is a lot of money to recover

APRIL 8, 2015 | BY  | FILED UNDER LETTERS 

Dear Editor,
The PPP Minister of Finance was quoted by GINA on March 30, 2015 as saying that the broad-based Coalition (the Coalition) has “resorted to utter promises of random goodies”.  Ashni Singh should know better than to utter such nonsense.
He sits in a chair that gives him front seat access to information that ought to equip him with the tools to understand clearly why the Coalition cannot offer more than 10 percent in the first 100 days.
Over the last three years, the economic performance of the PPP Finance Team was worse than mediocre with their average growth rate of sub five percent growth rates, depletion of the foreign reserves by over $42 billion, squandering of over $62 billion on Ponzi scheme projects and failure to arrest the balance of payment crisis we have in Guyana.
GPL and GuySuCo continue to underperform, bleeding the nation for a further $20 billion over the period 2011-2015.  NIS is technically insolvent. And the list goes on.
What the Minister of Finance and his sidekick Bharrat Jagdeo has not told you is that very little of these billions went to the masses or the workers.  Most of it went to the contracting class and their friends in the PPP cabal.
What the Minister of Finance has not told the people is the true financial state of Guysuco?  Today the government has announced wildly that they need $20 billion for Guysuco.  To do what exactly?  Or is this another figure that was plucked out of the sky by the PPP cabal like how the government plucked $10 billion out of the sky to spend on their favourite Ponzi scheme project that is managed by Donald Ramotar’s son— the “ICT cable project to nowhere”?
In 2011, the AFC after reviewing the books, made the decision to offer a 20 percent salary increase to all categories of workers from the sugar belt to the civil service to the semi-autonomous agencies.
In 2011, we had a plan to fund every single cent of it from the AFC proposed budget; in 2011, the income generating capacity of the central government operations and the combined semi-autonomous agencies / government corporations were much stronger than they are in 2015.  Why?  Because of the poor economic performance by the PPP administrators between 2011 and 2015.
So these are not random goodies but concrete policy recommendation based on the deteriorated state of the Treasury thank to the “economic kangalangs” in the PPP.  The Coalition has no choice but to propose a salary increase that reflect the times.  There is one thing the Coalition will not do, spend what it does not have like this “borrow and spend PPP cabal”.
 Sase Singh

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Ms Harper is window dressing

Posted By Staff Writer On April 7, 2015 @ 5:04 am In Letters | No Comments

Dear Editor,

A blogger in yesterday’s SN making light humour of the PPP’s prime ministerial candidate, Elizabeth Harper, forced me to reflect on the role she is playing in Guyanese politics. Here it is:

I have taken a position on this lady. I have publicly urged her to use her skills to negotiate for full membership rights of the PPP and the right to succeed to the presidency in the event there is a vacancy in that office. She doesn’t respond. She seems happy to serve as a window-dresser.

Is she in denial that the PPP is nothing but an ethnic party? Only Indians can be the leader of that party, and this is happening in a multi-racial society. The campaign so far has exposed the party’s ethnic strategy. This whole set-up (you can call it a template) of the PPP – an Indian leader, with a window-dresser African – is an anachronism in this 15th year in a new century, in a post-Obama world. The PPP needs her face to show they have a balanced ticket. Great, but this gives her leverage to change the party into a multi-racial one and more importantly to change the politics of the land.

In the long term this would be good for the PPP, the party would have an Indian base, but with its genuine multi-racial credentials, it would be easier for it to win African-Guyanese support.

No party has any business governing a multi-racial society like Guyana’s, if it cannot win broad cross-racial support. The PPP has never won more than five per cent African-support, and that, in my opinion, makes it unqualified to govern Guyana. So its priority should be on winning at least 12-15 per cent African support. And, it could not possibly achieve that goal, if it is so determined to continue using African-Guyanese as window-essers.

 Yours faithfully,

Mike Persaud

 

FM

This was a hammer for a letter from Sase also.  It exposes the PPP lies.

 

 

 

- Stabroek News - http://www.stabroeknews.com -

The debt write-off project was not a one-man effort and was not conceived by Bharrat Jagdeo

Posted By Staff Writer On April 5, 2015 @ 5:05 am In Letters | No Comments

Dear Editor,

 

The history of the debt relief effort for Guyana goes back to at least 1987 when the G-7 countries at their annual meeting actively began the process to cancel some of the debts of low-income countries (LICs). A year later, at the 14th G-7 summit from June 19-23, 1988 at the Toronto Convention Center in Canada, the rich countries concluded that the rescheduling of these debts could not be the only solution for the LICs like Guyana, and therefore a more complex mechanism was put in place to reduce the stock of debt outstanding. Where was Bharrat Jagdeo in 1988 and who was the then the Minister of Finance of Guyana?

Carl Greenidge, the then Minister of Finance, immediately presented to the international community a far-reaching Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) that was harmonized with this G-7 initiative. The ERP had four main interrelated objectives: restore economic growth, merge the underground economy into the official one, arrest the balance of payments crisis and return Guyana to a state of creditworthiness.

A Globe and Mail (Toronto) newspaper article captioned ‘Canada stage-manages Rescue Package for Guyana’ revealed that in 1990 a “support group” of rich countries pooled millions of dollars to pay off Guyana’s arrears to the World Bank and IMF, which restored Guyana’s good credit standing with both institutions. Again I ask, where was Bharrat Jagdeo in 1990 and who was the then Minister of Finance?

Guyana’s creditworthiness was restored in 1990, not in 1999 as the Jagdeo-Ramotar group continue to proclaim. Guyana’s economy turned around in 1991, not post 1992 as they continue to cunningly declare. Guyana started to arrest its balance of payments problem in 1991, not post 1992 as speaker after speaker at the PPP Kitty Rally deceptively affirmed. Some honesty from Jagdeo and Ramotar would serve them well. As Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of America said, “Honestly is the first chapter of wisdom.” But without a good education, the roots of honestly can never prosper and that is why the PPP leaders will continue to be strangers to the truth.

Desmond Hoyte and Carl Greenidge laid the foundation for Guyana’s economic turnaround in 1988, and when Dr Cheddi Jagan won the 1992 elections, he continued to water the roots of the ERP upon very sound advice from his Minister of Finance, Asgar Ally. Credit also has to go to Bharrat Jagdeo who took up this baton from his predecessors to complete this relay that allows for more than US$611 million of Guyana stock of debt to be lifted from the backs of the Guyanese people. But this project was not a one-man effort and was not conceived by Bharrat Jagdeo.

Actually, when he took over, the debt write-off plans under the HIPC Initiatives were already a foregone conclusion. All the PPP administration had to do was implement the IMF conditionalities including passing the laws for the establishment of a Public Procurement Commission and they were going to cross the tape, and they finally did.

So if there is anyone Guyana has to thank for our debt write-off package it was two men – Michael Wilson, the Minister of Finance of Canada in 1988 and James Baker who was the then Treasury Secretary to the US President Ronald Reagan, after who the famous Baker Plan was named. Also, we must never forget that it was Carl Greenidge who led the charge locally in those challenging days to prepare the foundation to turn around Guyana economically. The nation cannot divorce itself from the good work of our predecessors. Let us give Carl Greenidge his jacket.

 

Yours faithfully,
Sase Singh

 

FM

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