Clearly, since 1990, our country is a different country and people see Guyana in a more positive light, from the basket-case of CARICOM to the breadbasket of the Region. For certain, we are no longer one of the most indebted countries in the world and, in fact, Guyana stands as one of very few countries with a debt-to-GDP ratio that is considered favorable and sustainable. Definitely, Guyana is no longer categorized by any international organization as a highly indebted poor country (HIPC) as it was in 1990 and throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The country has been able, after almost three decades post-independence, conduct elections that have been declared by the UN, the Commonwealth, the OAS, CARICOM and all independent international observer groups as free and fair. It is true that Guyana, in partnership with international collaborators, had to fight in 2020 to prevent one group from rigging the results, but the elections were free and fair and the attempt to rig the results were unsuccessful. We are truly a genuine democracy.
From a country which for decades before 1992 (the then) suffered from negative economic growth, today has had almost four years of the highest economic growth rate in the world. Then and now, Guyana is a very different country.
On three fronts – food security, energy security and climate and environmental security – Guyana has become a global leader. President Irfaan Ali has built on the legacy of Cheddi Jagan and Bharat Jagdeo to become one of the most inspirational leaders in the global movement for food security. His 25 X 25 food security revolution he seeks to literally drag CARICOM to reduce its importation of food by 25% by 2025. He has been a pivotal player in the transformation of Guyana’s agriculture to provide CARICOM with an alternative source for food. From being an importer of corn and soya for stockfeed to support the poultry and livestock industries, Guyana is now poised to meet all our own needs by 2025 and also between 2025 and 2028 to be an exporter to other CARICOM countries.
President Ali’s 25 X 25 Food Security Agenda – the Irfaan Ali Initiative 2020 – builds on the Jagdeo Initiative which in 2010 urged CARICOM to address the trade, transportation, storage, manufacturing, quality and regulatory deficiencies that forced the region to import food at that time worth more than $US5B annually. From a moribund response to Jagdeo Initiative, CARICOM has fully and enthusiastically embraced the Ali Initiative and this give us hope that the Ali Initiative will succeed.
In 2010 when President Jagdeo launched Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), few believed that Guyana will become a leader in the world’s climate and environmental security movement. But Guyana’s bold move, sacrificing income by committing to preserve our forest, and, therefore, preserve one of the world’s most important carbon sink, is now paying off. The then Norway deal which was squandered when Guyana under another government briefly abandoned the LCDS, did bring Guyana approximately $US250M. But now Guyana has become the world’s first country with formally certified carbon credit. A portion of that credit has already been sold for $US750M. In addition, Guyana has been certified to sell carbon credits to the airline industry which has been mandated to cut its carbon emissions. On the global stage, President Ali and VP Jagdeo are now among the most sought-out leaders in the world in the fight to achieve climate and environmental security.
During the 2015 election campaign, there were naysayers who doubted Guyana’s then government when it announced the findings that will make Guyana an oil-producer and an oil-economy. It is less than ten years since then and Guyana has become one of the most important oil and gas exporting countries. The revenues, even when the PSA with the oil companies was extremely lopsided in favor of Big Oil, has helped Guyana to diversify its economy and to build its social and economic infrastructure and to achieve the highest growth rate in the world in the last four years.
Guyana is definitely the country that is on everybody’s mind right now. Foreign investments have reached unbelievable heights, far more than anyone every could have dreamt possible for Guyana. Our country is changing at a dizzying pace right before our eyes.
But while changing at a dizzying pace since August 2020 when President Irfaan Ali was sworn in and since Bharat Jagdeo, presently Vice President and General Secretary of the PPP, led his party to victory in the March 2020 elections, the changing fortunes of Guyana actually started since October 1992 when Cheddi Jagan led the fight to restore democracy. Between 1992 and 2000, under Cheddi Jagan and briefly under Sam Hinds and Janet Jagan, the changes were gradual given that the country was virtually bankrupt in 1992, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of almost 800% and an annual servicing of debt that amounted to more than 153% of Guyana’s revenues.
This is what Susan Meeker-Lowry, writing on the Structural Adjustment Program of the IMF in 1992 said of Guyana.“Guyana is the most heavily indebted country in the world. It has a foreign debt equal to or greater than 650 % of its total GDP and is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, surpassing even Haiti. Guyana was once considered one of the more prosperous countries in the Caribbean Region. However, following Independence from Britain in 1966, a corrupt civilian dictatorship (led by Forbes Burnham until 1985 and propped up by the US, the IMF and the World Bank) succeeded in placing 80% of all economic activity under state control. Mismanagement and cronyism resulted in the country’s inability to meet its export quotas for North American and European markets in the 1970s. From a ratio of 1:4 (US:Guyana) in 1980, the Guyanese dollar is now is now valued at 1:130, making it virtually worthless”.
Prior to the IMF Report, this is how the New York Times put it: “Guyana’s long stagnant economy has gone into a tailspin, pulling many of its citizens’ living standard down with it. Government officials acknowledge that the economic situation here is desperate”.
Sir Ron Saunders summarized the country Cheddi Jagan and the PPP took over in 1992 as follows: “Few would dispute that the two decades since 1976 were lost years for Guyana – a period when, despite its vast natural resources, the country experienced high debt, collapse of social and physical infrastructure and large-scale migration of its best educated people. Since the late 1970s, the economy of Guyana has been the sick man of the Caribbean falling second only to Haiti as the poorest country in the Region”.
This is why in the first ten years (1992 – 2002) of the PPP government development had to be gradual.
But after 2000, under the presidency of Bharat Jagdeo, development accelerated, with the expansion of Guyana’s economy, the modernization of our infrastructure and expansion of services, together with an influx of foreign investment. People’s views changed and Guyana gained international attention for positive development.The PPP Government between 2000 and 2014 began to accelerate development. Overall, objective analyses were praising the changes that the PPP development agenda brought to Guyana.
In contrast to the 1992 IMF Report, in 2009, this is how the IMF described Guyana: “The IMF commends Guyana on maintaining macroeconomic stability, despite external shocks and social pressure. The Institution has commended Government for implementing several policy initiatives that saw the economy maintaining macroeconomic stability, achieving real growth rates and containing inflation, in spite of global turmoil”.
Around that same time, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves at a CARICOM Heads of State Meeting, circa 2010, noting how Guyana was able to be among only a handful of countries to withstand the negative impact of the 2008 global financial crisis, stated that Guyana was a “bright growth prospect”.Further, Sir Shridath Ramphal,former Secretary General of the Commonwealth and the former Foreign Affairs Minister of the PNC Government, hailed the work of the PPP/C Government for a prominent and positive image of the country on the international scene. He said “the work that has been done by the PPP/C Government and the President on environmental issues is really quite phenomenal and the success of the LCDS is a very substantial contribution to world development”. He said then that Guyana has a “bright future”.
In 2011, the IMF again commended Guyana for maintaining macro-economic stability in an unfavorable global environment and for achieving economic growth for six consecutive years. Sir Ron Saunders, May 27, 2011, stated that Guyana’s economy was one of the strongest in the Caribbean and the country was then, already, long before oil, one of the fastest growing economies in CARICOM since 2006.
After a bump in the road (2015 to 2020), when the PNC returned to Government and carried on in its traditional way of taxing people, extravagant spending, corruption, a stalled infrastructural development, closing sugar estates and sabotaging the economy, the Irfaan Ali-led PPP Government returned.
Guyana has become in the past four years the fastest growing economy in the world, an enviable record of economic diversification, an unprecedented influx of direct foreign investment, a country with among the best debt-to-GDP ratio and one of the most admired countries in the world.
It is in this context that many people in and out of Guyanaworry a little bit about our political stability. It is, therefore, reassuring to see that our main political parties have held their party congress. A country’s democracy cannot be guaranteed if political parties do not subscribe to internal democratic practices. Holding their congress, albeit, late in all cases, is a prerequisite to achieving internal democracies. While the governing party held a smooth, concern-free congress, the opposition parties held congresses that did not meet the “smell-test”. Guyana can benefit from some sort of agreement through parliamentary action to ensure that no political party and institutions responsible for conducting elections behave in a manner that ever make it possible to rig elections. We had a near-miss in 2020. It must never happen again.
Racial and ethnic unity remain a challenge in our country. It is good to see that all three political parties during their congresses in May and June commit to racial, ethnic and religious unity. A cautionary note to these political parties must be evident – talk is cheap. The PPP congress ended with a perception that that party looks like Guyana, with all ethnic groups represented and playing a role. That congress embraced President Ali’s ONE GUYANA Movement. The other two political parties ended their congress looking more and more racially homogenous, out of sync with the country, and out of sync with the ONE GUYANA Agenda that the Guyanese people have been rallying around..
Good things are happening in our country. This past week ten new puisne judges were appointed and sworn in. Eight of these ten judges are women, demonstrating that in Guyana the glass ceiling clearly has been shattered. All these young new judges have had distinguished legal careers so far. Guyana’s judiciary appear to be in good hands. New industries are flourishing, more and more Guyanese are owning their own homes, cars and more and more young people across Guyana are accessing higher education and more vocational training and more and more small businesses are sprouting up everywhere.
The world is paying attention to the “brightest spot” in the world. We live in this land.