Dear Editor,

I was entirely bemused reading Ms Elizabeth Daly’s fulminations vis-à-vis Dr Tarron Khemraj.  Her last missive (KN July 1) however has forced me to add my two cents.

Dr Khemraj did not knock the ‘Grow More Food Campaign.’ He acknowledged it was a step in the right direction, and critiqued it as any respectable academic would.

Why is it that when informed criticisms are made, there is an immediate defensive posturing, and the person is accused of being unpatriotic, in particular if he/she resides overseas?  What sense does it make for people, especially rational and qualified people to knock where they come from for the fun of it?  These people more often than not, are legitimately concerned about the welfare of their homeland.

Ms Daly, if she does exist, would, as practically every Guyanese has, have relatives and friends overseas who no doubt will from time to time have something negative to say about Guyana – will she brand them unpatriotic and tell them to shut up too?  This immaturity is as amusing as it is disturbing.  The emptiness of her responses is equally startling, and shows an ever increasing disrespect by Ms Daly for the common sense of the Guyanese people.  As Dr Khemraj pointed out, economic stability can be very much divorced from all being well (as Ms Daly would like us to believe).

Very few economists concern themselves with ethical issues – for them, if a stolen item is kept within the economy it balances out, and therefore will not have an economic negative effect.

Also, in a stable economy even “low-level corruption can lead to the inefficient and unfair distribution of scarce benefits, undermine the purposes of public programs, encourage officials to create red tape, increase the cost of doing business and limit entry, and lower state legitimacy.”

Therefore “measures of economic growth are an insufficient measure of the quality of state/society relations and of the effectiveness of the public sector” (quotes are from International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, 2006).

For Ms Daly to simply state that an IMF report says our economy is stable and has grown, without offering a broader examination, is entirely puerile and an eye-pass.

Dr Khemraj asserts that the growth presently occurring is from old sectors, past their prime and therefore experiencing diminishing returns, and not from new and innovative sectors which are more critical to our future economic welfare.  He went on to explain that the IMF does not articulate these transformation-based policies.

Ms Daly as such, is futilely attempting to engage in a pit-bull attack that has become a fashionable modus operandi against perceived ‘outsiders.’ Unfortunately for you Ms Daly, your attack has proven even less effective than that of a regular GT rice-eater (common mongrel).

I am certainly no expert, and I will therefore look forward to Dr Khemraj’s responses, and would like to see instead of the rice-eater type attack, an informed and civil response from a suitably qualified and non-fictitious government economist.  I can only hope that some time in the future there will be an academic synergy to the benefit of Guyana as a whole (good girl, Ms Daly).

Yours faithfully,
Gerhard Ramsaroop