Guyana’s GDP per capita was the 43rd highest in the world in 1960

Dear Editor,

In this election season of lies, more lies and deceit, it is time to revisit some old truths. I decided to look at Guyana’s GDP from the time its wreckers-in-chief started playing the fool politically and economically. To do so, one has to analyze Guyana’s economic standing from the 1950s to present by assessing the state of the nation’s economy (1) during the PPP’s rule from the 1950s up to 1964, (2) during the PNC rule from 1964 to 1992 and, (3) during the PPP rule again from 1992 to present. Between 1953 and 1959, Guyana’s GDP per capita was within the top 40 nations on the planet.

By 1960, it was US$299.41 for 43rd place in the world. By comparison, Jamaica’s was US$429.14 (31st), Trinidad’s was US$635.43 (25th) and Barbados’ was US$378.84 (37th). By 1964, Guyana’s per capita GDP grew to US$308, a shocking US$10 in four years at US$2.45 per year. Guyana’s world ranking slipped to 50th. By comparison, Jamaica’s increased by almost US$89 to US$518 (36th place), Trinidad’s by almost US$170 to US$805 (28th place) and Barbados by US$84 to US$463 (41st place).

When the PNC took over in 1964, Guyana was already stumbling along economically. The PNC accelerated the economic demise. The country’s GDP went from US$308 in 1964 (50th ranking) to US$506.37 in 1992 (133rd ranking), a dismal growth of US$198.37 in some 28 years at US$7.08 per annum.

Between 1992 to 2011, the nation’s GDP per capita grew from US$506.37 to US$2656. The PPP crows incessantly about this growth. It is hollow crowing. For while Guyana’s GDP per capita has expanded some 5.2 times under the PPP since 1992 at a yearly rate of about US$119, Guyana still remains currently ranked 115th in GDP per capita compared to the rest of the world.

We are still the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

What this evidence clearly demonstrates is that Guyana’s decline started under the PPP, was continued by the PNC and now the country has barely grown under the PPP again.

In fact, if one discounts the drug economy and remittances, Guyana would clearly demonstrate negative economic progress.

How could our GDP per capita grow 5.2 times in 18 years and we remain so economically wrecked? Economic growth around the world has escalated while it has stagnated in Guyana.

It is all relative. While we are creeping, they are running, actually sprinting. Technology has been harnessed around the world by poor nations to realize major gains while Guyana stumbles around lighting candles during blackouts like a scene from the Dark Ages. US$119 per annum GDP per capita is chicken feed to those nations that have surpassed us and they have bigger populations and less natural resources than Guyana. Corruption and inequality has devastated the country in the past 18 years, continuation of a familiar PNC theme.

When the PPP boasts what it has done compared to the PNC, it still stands, like the PNC, at the bottom of the heap. While we see a few cars, new homes, some laptops, a few paved roads and some cheap goods from China as prosperity in the past 18 years, there are far wealthier countries looking at prosperity as consuming less and conserving more. In this paradise called

Guyana, you must spend a fortune securing your newly acquired prosperity.

A nation that grows its GDP per capita 5.2 times in 18 years cannot be commended when its growth is lagging or miniscule compared to the rest of the world and when such minimal true growth is achieved in a time of great criminality, the rise of cocaine cartels, grave insecurity, rampant inequality, onerous taxation, runaway corruption, heavy remittances and a culture of fear and intimidation. Imagine Guyana went from having the 43rd highest GDP per capita in the world in 1960, higher than Brazil, South Korea, China and India, to a nation begging its way for scraps and living in economic bondage. The PPP and the PNC have destroyed this land. Thrown it to the dogs. Please go out and vote for them again.

Yours faithfully,
M. Maxwell