FORMER President, Brigadier (Ret’d) David Granger, has absolutely zero standing on the very subject that he sought to pretentiously, innocently, and cleverly present to the unsuspecting Guyanese people.
The evidence, however, is overwhelmingly to the contrary in respect of his own actions, intentions, decisions, and policies as the Leader of the Opposition (2011-2015) and as the Ninth Executive President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (2015-2020).
The former President’s foremost stated philosophy was to rebalance the economy. Although it was unclear at the outset what he meant by rebalancing the economy, as time elapsed, having analysed his policies thereof, his intentions became strikingly crystalised.
The findings of such analyses conducted by this author during his presidency were that (i) rebalancing of the economy meant destruction of the private sector through raising taxes, increasing the cost of doing business, deliberately creating an unfriendly business environment, deliberately seeking to create a parallel private sector by enabling, in particular, the Trinidadian private-sector players into Guyana freely, and obtain lands and access to other resources freely and easily; and (ii) all this at the expense of enriching a small elitist group associated with the APNU+AFC government.
Former President, Brigadier (Ret’d) David Granger, in a virtual programme titled “The public interest,” sought to deliver a history lesson, albeit one that was factually skewed. The former President accused the PPP/C of terrorist violence during the GAWU strike, during the disturbances from March to July 1964, in their bid to seize control of the country.
For the purpose of this article, this author intentionally ignored the multiplicity of politically motivated violence and crime perpetrated on the Guyanese people under the former president’s idol, the late L.F.S Burnham―and during the 1990s and early 2000s when the PNC was out of power.
Instead, it is more worthwhile to examine the former President’s ludicrous and brazen hypocrisy by way of exposing his own moral dilemma, wherein (i) lest we forget, the vicious attempts to not seize, but transparently influence the outcome of the 2020 regional and general elections, that would have resulted in him being foisted upon the people against their will, as their illegal, unrecognised President in 2020, had they succeeded; and (ii) his efforts during his tenure as Opposition Leader in the period 2011-2015, to paralyse the country and by extension the people, motivated by his quest to control the country.
DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
Brigadier (Ret’d) David Granger as Opposition Leader: 2011-2015
Prior to his election as the eighth Executive President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana in 2015, Brigadier (Ret’d) David Granger served as the Leader of the Opposition for the period 2011-2015.
For the first time in Guyana’s post-independence history, the combined political opposition had a one-seat majority in the National Assembly during that period, thus a minority government. This dispensation had enabled the combined political opposition to exercise control of the National Assembly.
It is, therefore, a timely reminder to note that by virtue of the foregoing dispensation, the political opposition led by David Granger sought to paralyse Guyana’s development in more ways than one.
That was the period when budgets tabled in the National Assembly were cut, major development projects were blocked such as the Amaila Falls Hydro power project, investment in new state-of-the-art hospitals, and the new bridge across the Demerara River, to name a few.
Worse, owing to that political dispensation, the government was unable to enact critical amendments to the Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Legislative framework (AML/CFT).
Consequently, the country was grey listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and was on the verge of becoming blacklisted.
The consequence of this would have led to a complete cut off from the international payment systems that in turn, would have crippled the economy. These were some of the main issues that necessitated snap-elections in 2015 as the country had become practically ungovernable.
Brigadier (Ret’d) David Granger as the eighth Executive President: 2015-2020
Former President Granger’s foremost stated philosophy was to rebalance the economy. It was unclear at the outset what he meant by rebalancing the economy, until time elapsed so that proper analyses of his policies thereof could have been performed.
The findings of such analyses conducted by this author during his presidency were that (i) rebalancing of the economy meant destruction of the private sector through raising taxes, increasing the cost of doing business, deliberately creating an unfriendly business environment, deliberately seeking to create a parallel private sector by enabling, in particular, the Trinidadian private-sector players into Guyana freely, promising that they could obtain lands and other resources freely and easily; and (ii) all this at the expense of enriching a small elitist group associated with the APNU+AFC government. In fact, the former Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo was on record at a forum in Trinidad & Tobago promising to distribute lands to Trinidadians.
With the aforementioned in mind, former President Granger’s track record as President should be examined further, with the view to exposing his brazen hypocrisy. In this regard, the following section sought to delve into some of his most infamous accomplishments as President.
Violation of the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMA) Act (2003): Public financial mismanagement, misappropriation and unaccountability perpetrated under the former David Granger-led government during the period 2015-2020, as outlined hereunder:
A perusal of the Auditor General’s reports for the period 2015-2020 revealed that the sum of approximately G$930 million was unaccounted for―whereby there were missing payment vouchers;
The controversial US$18 million signing bonus, which was hidden, then subsequently transferred to the Consolidated Fund following a move to the court to do so, triggered by actions of the PPP/C in opposition. The manner in which the Granger government handled the bonus was also in breach of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act;
The overdraft on the government’s deposit accounts totalling G$128 billion as of September 2020. These sums were unlawfully withdrawn as the former Finance Minister Winston Jordan effectively circumvented the approval of, and scrutiny of the said withdrawals by the National Assembly, inter alia, in violation of the FMA Act. Section 60 (1) of the FMA Act states that…” the Minister may approve the use of advances in the form of an overdraft on an official bank account to meet cash shortfalls during the execution of the annual budget.” While the Act provides for the deposit accounts to be overdrawn, Section (2) of the FMA Act states that…” the Minister shall repay in full all advances in the form of an overdraft on an official bank account on or before the end of the fiscal year during which that overdraft was drawn”. The overdraft balances were never cleared for the entire five-year period (2015-2020) until the incumbent government assumed office in 2020 and made the necessary provisions to regularise those overdrafts in accordance with the FMA Act, which was effected in May, 2021; and
Following the successful passage of the no-confidence motion (NCM) in December 2018, the David Granger-led government, in accordance with the provisions in the Guyana Constitution, was deemed to be a caretaker government. In the premises, the government had no authority to expend monies from the capital budget. This was nonetheless blatantly disregarded and the full capital budget in 2019 was expended to the tune of over G$66 billion, exclusive of the sum expended during the period January to August 2020.
Altogether, the approximate sum of public funds deemed to have been misappropriated, unaccounted for and mismanaged in a reckless fashion by the David Granger government amounted to a whopping G$200 billion or US$1 billion, representing almost 100% of the annual pre-oil tax revenue and 20% of non-oil GDP.
Deteriorating Performance of the Economy: Under the David Granger-led government, export earnings excluding gold shrank by 20% for the period 2015-2020 relative to the corresponding period. To this end, cumulative export earnings excluding gold during the period 2009-2014 amounted to $624 billion, reflecting a growth rate of 41%. Conversely, during the period 2015-2020, cumulative export earnings excluding gold amounted to $557 billion, thereby reflecting a loss of G$67 billion.
The Bank of Guyana international reserves as at the end of 2014 represented nearly five months of import cover, which weakened to less than three months import cover by the end of 2020. The Granger-led government inherited nearly G$100 billion in liquid cash sitting in the government’s deposit accounts in 2015. By the time the former president demitted office in 2020, those accounts were in deficit balances as previously highlighted.
The tax burden imposed upon both households and firms increased by nearly 60%, resulting in additional tax collection by the Granger-led government of approximately G$100 billion, on account of contractionary fiscal policies, versus expansionary fiscal policies as is the case with the incumbent PPP/C government.
Job creation in Granger’s Plantain Chip Economy: One would recall that in an exclusive interview with former President Granger, he was asked about his plans for job creation. His instantaneous response was that it was not his government’s responsibility to provide jobs. He then reasoned that people could sell plantain chips, cassava chips, cook-up rice, and pepper sauce.
His response did not only evidently expose the degree of his unintelligible view of economics, but the former president was clueless how to, by way of sound economic policies, create a vibrant industry for processed food products such as those that he mentioned. That framework never existed during his presidency, rather, it was destroyed.
So, when he spoke of plantain chips and pepper sauce, he was not referring to same on a grand scale to the extent where there would be investments in food-processing facilities by providing the incentives for such; he was merely referring to such activities within a narrowly constrained conception to the street-vending format.
Setting the framework to rig the 2020 Regional and General Elections: Former President Granger consistently claimed that he had nothing to do with the attempts to influence the outcome of the 2020 elections. He has a tendency to claim ignorance of certain issues.
Yet, his actions, decisions, and policies as president, were to the contrary that are too numerous to mention, such as, his gross violation of the Guyana Constitution when he unanimously appointed the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
In 2017, lest we forget, during one of former President Granger’s visits to the United States, he delivered the feature address at a forum where the central theme was “retention of power in 2020”.
The former President’s key message of emphasis at that forum was his reminder to the audience of how the PNC retained power in the past. While he did not expressly state or acknowledge, the world knows that the PNC’s history he was referring to were the days of election rigging under the party’s founder, L.F.S Burnham. In fact, Burnham had militarised the state to the extent where the military was used to facilitate the rigging of elections. It is public knowledge, too, that Brigadier (Ret’d) Granger was a senior officer in the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) in the dark era of election rigging in Guyana.
It so manifested that in 2020, the APNU+AFC government attempted to do just that, which former President Granger had hinted that he would do to retain power (at all costs it seemed), almost three years prior to the elections.
Despite the foregoing, the former President would claim innocence out of ignorance, and that as president he had agreed to the recount in 2020. But the irrefutable facts were that (i) he agreed to the recount because he was under intense pressure, particularly from the international community, (ii) he risked being subjected to personal sanctions had he successfully suppressed the will of the people through the ballots, and (iii) Guyana would have become an isolated and ultimately failed state.