Dear Editor,
If Hydar Ally (‘The PPP and PNC cannot be placed in the same category’ SN, November 2) had taken the time to pay attention to what I said in my letter, it is clear that I placed both the PNC and the PPP in the same category. That category is failure. No ands, ifs and buts. On any objective and independent evaluation, both parties have failed in virtually every aspect of their mandates when they ruled.
Comparing failures is not as straightforward as Mr Ally pretends it to be. My second paragraph delves into this issue. I must state that it is evident the PNC was the bigger failure of the two nation-wreckers. But failure is no benchmark for judging the performance of governments. By any reasonable and rational measure, failure is still failure, particularly when governments have 28 years and 18 years to correct mistakes and change course when necessary. Thus, the performance of both the PPP and PNC is a disgrace to this nation. Even if the PNC claims lack of cooperation from (strikes, etc) and that the fleeing of PPP supporters who dominated the agriculture industry undermined its performance in agriculture, it was evident that this course of events was to be expected, particularly after the dispossession of their voting rights. The PNC failed to plan around this problem and had to bear its cross caused by its own skullduggery. Each administration must live by the consequences of its actions. Regardless of rigged or fair elections, both the PNC and PPP failed the nation. The rigging of elections by the PNC does not minimize the PPP’s failure some 18 years later, nor does it alleviate or increase the PNC’s failure. An administration is given a job and it either performs it or fails to perform it. Both the PNC and PPP failed.
Comparing the PPP and PNC is not easy. There are key similarities and instructive differences. Mismanagement, waste, corruption, outright thieving and incompetence is at the heart of both sagas of misery. Some negatives have been worse under one or other regime. Corruption is worse under the PPP because of the greater flow of money during the PPP rule. The PNC operated a socialist economic model where the state provided for free or massively subsidised services such as water, education and electricity. This system eventually collapsed around the early 1980s but everything was free if you could actually get it. The PPP operates a free market system where citizens must pay a lot for these same services that the PNC tried to provide for free. Both parties have borrowed heavily, with the PPP borrowing at a higher rate than the PNC to date. But the PPP obtained massive debt forgiveness which has seen almost all of the PNC-era debt wiped off, saving this nation billions of US dollars in debt payments. Then the PPP went ahead and borrowed massively all over again.
Another key difference is revenue collection. The PPP has taxed Guyanese and collected record levels of revenue compared to the lack-lustre revenue collection efforts of the PNC. Remittances which were essentially non-existent under the PNC now account for a sizeable chunk of the nation’s economy since 1992.
The underground economy fuelled by cocaine cartels has brought a boon of fast illegal cash to Guyana never experienced under the PNC. The VAT snares some of this extra money flowing into the economy. The PPP has benefited from more free resources such as grants from foreign sources than the PNC. With this greater access to and benefit from more money and resources than the PNC ever dreamed of handling, pillaging under the PPP is at a higher level.
The PNC tried to deliver several things either free or subsidised and failed miserably. The PPP wants Guyanese to pay a fortune and still delivers blackouts, discoloured water, flooding, etc. Would the PNC have delivered infrastructure and services at the same current level as the PPP if it had borrowed, taxed and benefited from remittances and economic spinoffs of the illegal economy as the PPP? Would the PNC have achieved the same level of infrastructure if it demanded that citizens pay for amenities at the same rate as the PPP?
Finally, the Guyanese people have achieved prosperity by engaging in heavy personal debt. I like to properly and fully judge success and failure. The best method is by measuring each administration’s performance by itself in the context of the realities of the time. Not by engaging only in comparison of ancient failures in different times. Both the PPP and PNC failed. For 40% and more of this nation born and raised after 1992 they don’t care who failed less than whom. They want a better life. Failures and lesser failures can’t deliver betterment. When a nation is putting massive resources into various sectors and getting failed returns it is failure. Both the PPP and the PNC belong in the same boat.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
