Guyana now ranked below Haiti

Editor’s Note: The following articles, from December 2, 1989, are being reprinted as part of Stabroek News’ ongoing observances to mark its 30th anniversary.

 

GUYANA has slipped below Haiti and is now ranked as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

This is the startling conclusion in the just-re­leased McIntyre report which also says the coun­try needs a political system which ‘encourages the participation of all Guyanese in the recovery programme.

The report suggests that what is also needed is ‘a restoration of confidence in the ability of the government to manage the economy and share its benefits widely.’

The document is the work of a Commonwealth team headed by former Caricom Secre­tary General. Mr. Alister McIntyre. The mission spent over a year analysing the state of affairs here and its recommendations, circulated in Parliament this week by govern­ment, attempt to point the way forward. ‘Guyana is now rank­ed below Haiti as the poorest country in the Western Hemis­phere,’ the team says.

The mission also found that the steady economic and financial deterioration of the country has led to people leaving the country at the rate of about 1,000 a month. This rate works out to about three per cent of people of working age leaving the country each year.

It puts inflation at 50 per cent per annum and unemployment at 40 per cent of the work force. Govern­ment’s excessive control of the economy, which limited the role of private initiative and investment, also contributed to massive migration of ‘Guyana’s best and brightest,’ the team says.

PG4&25.QXDThe advisory group says government’s cor­rective measures over the past decade lacked political support and the institutional capacity to undertake ‘ strong adjustment measures.

The grim financial and economic data apart, the report says the greater loss has been the deterioration in the physical quality of life of the population. Average incomes have fallen since 1980 by 50 per cent and hunger and malnutrition have grown. Homelessness and vagrancy have be­come major problems and the poor spend most of their time looking for food, the mission found.

It also feels Guyana is among the most heavi­ly indebted developing countries in the world and the team says it is likely that the in­debtedness works out to about $2,500 (US) for every man, woman and child.

The McIntyre mission however says the gov­ernment has no alter­native at present but to work within the IMF-approved recovery framework. The team members are in broad agreement with the overall ob­jectives and the requir­ed policy measures of the Economic Recovery Programme.

They however, con­tend that the IMF and World Bank and other financial institutions have given insufficient attention to relief mea­sures for the poor, to vital imports and to the unmanageability of the debt burden.

The report adds, ‘donors must also re­cognise that the social impact of adjustment goes beyond the bur­den on particular groups. It encompasses the wider issue of sus­taining social cohesion and democratic pro­cesses.

Experience elsewhere indicates that popular protests against price increases and other austerity mea­sures could degenerate into more generalised social unrest and the possibility of a break­down in civilian gov­ernment.

‘This is a risk which many governments face in implementing struc­tural adjustment pro­grammes, and it is a risk which should be more fully taken into account in designing the scope and timing of adjustment mea­sures.’

The team says the es­sence of the real ad­justment programme will require shifts of lo­cal labour, land and capital from one set of uses to another.

‘We encourage the government to strength­en its efforts to ex­plain the real, as op­posed to the purely financial, nature of the required adjustments. The public must un­derstand that major shifts in the use of domestic resources are envisaged. Im­mediate consumption must be reduced and real incomes will be redistributed among alternative current in­come-generating activi­ties.’

The mission also ad­vises that if people are to take up ‘the vision of greater pros­pects for all in the economy,’ govern­ment’s message ‘must carry convic­tion and persuasion.’

‘This argues for an extremely well conceived and implemented pro­gramme of public rela­tions, and for strenuous efforts to open up pub­lic discussion of devel­opment issues.’

 

The last curtain falls

Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori’ (The hero who is worthy of her praise the Muse will not let die) Horace: THE ODES.

* * *

I mourn the death of Frank Pilgrim with a grief that is deepened by the shock of its sud­denness. Last Friday night as the curtain rose at the Cultural Centre there he stood in his ele­ment in that distinctive Pilgrim stance, benign and assured, to introduce the world premiere of Dave Martins’ musical ‘Raise Up.’ 1 saw him on Monday in hospital where he had gone, I understood, for a minor operation and I had sent him Alec Guinness’s memoirs to read. Now he is dead, suddenly not there, and it is a terrible loss. I extend heartfelt sympathy to Billy Pilgrim, Cicely Robinson, and all the dis­tinguished Pilgrim clan.

Frank Pilgrim had great distinction. His play ‘Miriamy’ will live as long as West Indian theatre lives. His wit and capacity for gentle persuasion through amusing anecdote were legendary.

Who can forget his stories — I hope some of them have been captured on tape starting with that lovely anticipatory chuckle and con­tinuing with such a fine understanding of hu­manity’s quirks and foibles, triumphs and ab­surdities. In all the stories I ever heard him tell, of king and commoner both, malice never once intruded, although he could take a dig most humorously. He searched for humour always and for a cautionary, but not bitter, tale to tell.

We have lost, the nation has lost, many men in this one man, – playwright of unusual but underplayed distinction, craftsman of words, a great journalist and fine editor, one of the Caribbean’s finest communicators, raconteur of unequalled wit and fun, a wonderful Guyanese and West Indian, a loyal and humorous friend, a kind and deeply gentle human being. Let us remember him in all these parts as he takes his last bow and the curtain falls. It is the pity and terror of man’s life that we cannot call him back for an encore he more than most deserves.j

IAN MCDONALD