Dear Editor,
We are just over one year away from an election. Guyanese people have a habit of likening big shiny things to progress and development. The PPP will go on a spree in the next year to try to win an election by building more big shiny things and hoping Guyanese swallow this bait hook, line and sinker. So it is time to get this out of the way: the PPP has invested significantly in infrastructure since 1992 and infrastructure has improved significantly since that time. But is what we get in quality and quantity commensurate with what we have spent on infrastructure since 1992?
While we have experienced substantial changes, the nation has clearly not gotten its money’s worth. Various factors including corruption, waste, mismanagement, poor planning and lacklustre maintenance have made it clear that all the funds borrowed or granted and raised by taxation from locals have not always been properly spent and have not delivered results.
Overbuilding and overcapacity has plagued the nation since 1992. The PPP has played politics with our money. Building infrastructure for political fanfare has been all the rage. Here is how it works: the PPP builds a big fancy sugar factory and tells the nation that is development. It does not matter the factory is underused and sits as a profound example of wasteful spending of money that could have been spent somewhere else where it is actually more desperately needed. Does the government understand the concept of return on investment? – spend where you get the best returns on your spending. The best return on spending is not the best political leverage the PPP could get. An administration should not play politics with poor people’s money. Taxpayers are paying VAT and all manner of taxes for some infrastructure that is unnecessary and under-utilized.
This means that other vital infrastructure is being neglected while unneeded and oversized infrastructure is built for political masquerading. Political self-aggrandisement cannot trump value for money, service to the people and good governance and be passed off as infrastructural development. At the end of the day, revenue comes from both those who support and do not support the government and many who support the government also want value for their money.
Then there is the fix-it cost. When poor work is delivered it means more taxpayers’ dollars must be spent to fix the mess. More money is thrown into correcting basic and endemic problems in Guyana. Some new projects have to be repaired and upgraded shortly after ‘completion.’ The shocking truth is that the same bevy of contractors get up to the trough and get in on the gravy train all over again.
Privatization is one of the PPP’s biggest changes and it has been a major player in the infrastructural development boasted by the PPP. It has also been a boon to the deepening and worsening of corruption in Guyana and one of the biggest underlying reasons why Guyanese have not gotten the level of infrastructure they have paid for. Donald Ramotar recently attempted according to Kaieteur News of June 15 to blame the current level of corruption in government on the PNC, by claiming the PPP failed to purge the state’s apparatus. Mr Ramotar is wrong. While many PNC supporters work within the state apparatus, the PPP is in control of the sector and most critically the money flow. The PPP’s authority over the state sector is now firmly entrenched. Mr Ramotar should stop peddling nonsense to the public. In 18 years, corruption under the PPP has grown to terrifying levels never before seen in this nation. How did it grow? (1) privatization (2) more money collected in taxes and borrowed in loans (3) more remittances (4) lax anti-corruption measures (5) lack of political will to combat the problem.
Corruption is the most foetid problem with this infrastructural development. There is outright theft of money, materials and labour, and the payment of bribes and other financial and material inducements in addition to wastage, malfeasance and negligence.
Negligence and malfeasance cover incompetence, waste, shoddy due diligence, improper practices, failed systems and other ills that have accompanied the process of infrastructural development since 1992. Failed new infrastructure does not come cheap to rebuild, repair, replace and maintain. It bears an indubitable price of negligence and sometimes malfeasance that taxpayers must pay and do pay in Guyana.
As an example, the PPP has invested massively in the infrastructure of the electricity sector since coming to power. So what are Guyanese paying for electricity these days after this massive investment? According to GPL’s website, $53.78 per kwh which is US$26.89 cents. In New York, Con Edison customers are paying US$7.5 cents per kwh. Why are Guyanese paying US$19.39 cents more than their American cousins for a kwh of electricity when labour is cheaper in Guyana, fuel costs the same and the difference in income is staggering? On top of that the nation is afflicted with frequent blackouts.
So it comes down to this simple fact: we have more and better roads, bridges, hospitals, sugar factories and hostels than we’ve ever had before. But we also have more floating wharves, washed-away roads, staggering stellings, empty hostels, ghost hospitals and broken bridges than we’ve ever had before. We have more illegal wealth created from the entire system of infrastructural development than ever seen before. With the amount of money spent since 1992, this nation should have had the best infrastructure in the region by now.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell
