After 18 years of the PPP/C absolute poverty has not fallen to any noticeable extent

Dear Editor,

A 1971 Pan American Health Organisation survey found 38% of the Guyana population living below the poverty line. This was just before the PNC with the full support of the PPP went on its nationalization madness, spiralling the nation into an economic death knell. By 1988, a study by Boyd found that statistic to be about 65%. A World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) of 1993 found about 43% below the poverty line. Looking at these numbers, below the poverty line occupancy increased by 27% from 1971 to 1988 under the PNC. This is as stunning as the incredible change from 1988 to 1993. The percentage of those Guyanese living below the poverty line went from 65% in 1988 to 43% in 1993 (a 22% improvement). What during this period accounts for this stunning change? While the PPP would like to claim this one, it was actually the economic machinations of Desmond Hoyte, which were dictated by the IMF. By simply opening up the economy and allowing more trade, investment, remittances and barrels, Guyana’s poverty level declined by 22%. It was the least the PNC could do after wrecking the economy for most of its 28-year reign.

What happened after Hoyte handed this poverty level of 43% to the PPP? The 1999 UNDP Living Conditions Survey (LCS) placed the population under absolute poverty at 38%. Yes, in 6 years of PPP power, poverty dropped a shocking 5%. Less than 1% of Guyanese escaped poverty each year from 1993 to 1999. Even more blatant was the fact that the level of poverty has stagnated and remained at around this level until the present. The promises in 1992 like the promises in 1964 to lift the nation out of poverty into prosperity have sounded that familiar sound of emptiness. Some 18 years after coming to power, the percentage of Guyanese living in absolute poverty has not fallen to any noticeable extent. The heart of the problem may very well lie in inequality. With respect to inequality, the United Nations Human Development
Index’s GINI coefficient puts Guyana at 114th place, making it one of the most unequal countries on the planet when it comes to income distribution.

This has always been its history under the PNC and PPP. While the PNC never had access to as much money as the PPP, they engaged in the same corruption and party paramountcy comedy of errors where any joker with a party card and nothing between the ears gets the whole trough or gets to sell the whole trough to the highest bidder. The 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% men of the Cup and Palm Tree create (and created) a monstrous inequality that fuels poverty in Guyana. They sell state assets to their cronies and any fly-by-night salesmen for dirt cheap prices. Those buyers turn around and pay poor people an insult due to an insult called the private sector minimum wage. The difference is pocketed as massive profits. Then there is the taxation system which collects from all and gives contracts to a select few, making millionaires of that few while the masses get a few pieces of silver.

These political charlatans have all the power and control all the money in the land. This is the downright criminal and corrupt system created by the PNC and PPP. It is system of mansion-filled Pradovilles and squatter-ridden Pigeon Island.

David Granger, Donald Ramotar, Khemraj Ramjattan and Raphael Trotman were all part of these parties and the systems they created. Seriously, the more I think of it, the more things change the more they stay the same. The more I believe the Guyanese people should stay home on election day. It is better to watch comedy from afar than to participate in it only to become the butt of the jokes coming from it.

Yours faithfully,
M. Maxwell