Dear Editor,
I respect Dominic Gaskin very much since I think as Treasurer of the AFC he ticked all the right boxes in running a tight financial ship in the 2011 elections campaign. He was extremely consistent in his demand for full accountability from all the field staff then. So in 2011, I was proud of his work, but clearly, as Minister of Business, he has lost his way.
I speak specifically to the fact that he declared in the local press that “no new investment proposal has yet borne fruit” after 16 months under his watch. To add to that pitiable performance he then went on to say why this is the case by saying that “due to the contractual agreement between the government and CHEC [the airport contractor], the state cannot prevent the contracting firm from importing 300,000 tons of stones.” I say this is too much from Minister Gaskin!
Here is another situation where the Granger administration is clearly out to lunch on the big developmental issues. So the children of Guyanese taxpayers will be asked to pay back a loan to China in the future, but that same loan was creating new jobs in Suriname rather than in Guyana in an industry where we have a core competence locally. Minister Gaskin is making these statements in an environment where the Granger administration has not delivered on its promise to create new jobs for young people.
When will this national burden subside, where we continue to create too few new jobs all because of an overwhelming deformity of strategic thinking in the public service and reckless public statements from most of our Ministers, with very few exceptions.
Can you imagine that the biggest contract that is being implemented under Team Granger that was incubated under Team Jagdeo is working to serve the State of Suriname rather than the State of Guyana and we talk about territorial integrity?
What a greater giveaway of our wealth is there than to take decisions that will destroy our internal wealth creation capacity by lifting all of that potential into a foreign land?
This is nothing but developmental disparity; we pay and Suriname plays. What the Granger administration has done with this airport contract was to have kept Team Guyana on the bench as spectators to the game, when by right, we have the talent, the material and the ability to produce every stone need for our national airport. This situation demands a forensic audit and even a project audit from the Office of the Auditor General.
Minister Gaskin is wrong. This contract is a frontal attack on the Guyanese private sector. But because of this adulterated legal agreement that was modified under the Granger administration, the people in the quarry and construction sector will clearly not be its ally. If one interrogates the two premier government reports at this time, viz. the Ministry of Finance Mid-Term 2016 Report and the Bank of Guyana 2016 Half Year Report one can find evidence of the fallout from misplaced decisions like this one to procure stones from a foreign country, and it will get worse if this is not reversed.
In the first half of 2016, activities in the construction sector declined by 8% and this was attributed in these government reports to “weaker investments in private construction”.
Who would not hide their money in such an environment of great economic uncertainty?
One can also look at the credit disbursed from the local banking sector to the construction sector, which is a good proxy to assess the investment appetite of the local quarries and contracting community. Credit to the construction sector declined by 27% during January-June 2016.
Now with all this information at the disposal of President Granger, let us see what he will do? Ignore the reality and deprive the Guyanese people by allowing the status quo to continue, or take presidential action to bring economic justice to the Guyanese people.
Yours faithfully,
Sase Singh
