Dear Editor,
October 5, 1992, has gone down in our history as one of the most important dates in Guyana. The election of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) to power marked a radical change in our country. A change that saw the beginning of prosperity for our people and nation.
The PPP/C had inherited a bankrupt country. Our foreign debt was the biggest in the world, per capita. It is apposite to quote here a sworn affidavit by Mr Carl Greenidge, who was the last Minister of Finance of the PNC regime. He said, “…Guyana is one of the poorest countries in the world and the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere. As a consequence, it is classified by the World Bank as an IDA – eligible country, requiring grants and highly concessionary loans for development purposes. By 1989, Guyana’s external debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio was approximately 925% with approximately US$1.9 billion in debt, including US$1.4 billion in arrears, owed across the spectrum to international institutions, foreign country donors, commercial banks and other creditors. In 1990, the external debt to export ratio was 951%. Between 1986 and 1990, Guyana’s average annual debt service payments were 153% of fiscal revenues.”
He went on to say, “…During the mid-1980s, the government had fallen into such serious arrears with its multilateral, bilateral and other lenders that lending from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the World Bank, as well as bilateral lending, was cut off…”.
Guyana had become a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC). That situation seemed almost impossible.
The PPP/C administration worked tirelessly with all stakeholders to halt the decline and reverse the trend. By the time the Party left office in 2015, Guyana had not just stopped the downward slide but we became an Upper Middle Income Developing country. This is what the IMF and World Bank said of our country. We must all be proud of this great achievement.
While the PNC hurricane damaged every sector of the country’s social and economic life, the sugar industry went through the full gamut and bore the full brunt of PNC/APNU+AFC vindictiveness and spite.
By 1990, the PNC regime had so mismanaged the industry that we were importing sugar. Production had slumped to just 129,000 tonnes. The PNC was then going to sell the industry for peppercorns. At a meeting with the GAWU in 1990, the PNC economic adviser Kenneth King told the union that the PNC regime was selling for US$45 million. However, the regime had to do a lot of work before the buyer could take it over. It was then they hired Booker Tate to prepare the industry for privatisation.
After taking office in 1992, the PPP/C reversed the tide. Production went well above 300,000 tonnes. It had reached 331,052 tonnes just before the floods of 2005 and 2006.
The industry then had to confront a series of challenges. First were the floods in 2005 and 2006. Then the drastic cut in the price of sugar sold into the European Union by some 36%. Then there were the issues with the new Skeldon Factory which Booker Tate was responsible for.
It was clear that the industry needed to be restructured. GuySuCo began a programme to do just that. A lot of work had gone into mechanisation in the fields and to add value to sugar and sugar related products. Already the industry was giving much power to the Guyana Power and Light.
Plans were afoot to refine sugar, set-up another distillery and also to produce ethanol. Molasses was being bottled and sold as health food. The industry had established two packaging facilities at Enmore and Blairmont.
Cost cutting measures, such as liquid fertiliser and compressing the bagasse for burning in the factories to substitute for wood, were being put in place.
The plan was to break even by 2017 and to begin to once more make a financial surplus by 2018.
The industry was on track to achieve this goal. That could have been seen by the performance in 2015.
The PNC-led APNU regime abandoned the plan and moved to close the sugar industry.
So far, they have shut down three estates.
They are saddling the industry with more huge debts. Thirty billion dollars, which they said were to be put into the remaining estates, were borrowed from the commercial banks.
However, from all the information available, not much is getting to the industry.
Instead, the money is being squandered in fun projects like the bar, swimming pool and other facilities for the elite in the regime to enjoy. This is nothing short of criminal.
After all, more than seven thousand workers have been sacked in the industry and they have not even been paid their severance. However, the rulers are in party mood and they are determined to have a good time at the people’s expense. They are building facilities to ‘sport’, while workers and their families are on the brink of starvation.
As we observe October 5, 2018, we must take courage and inspiration of what a free and democratic people can achieve as was demonstrated by the PPP/C’s 23 years in office. We must take strength and work to reverse this trend that is leading our country back to poverty, nakedness and crimes.
October 5, 1992 is a reminder that this trend can be reversed.
Yours faithfully,
Donald Ramotar
Former President
