OPINION: The 2024 Jagdeo Budget Part 3: Forget people development. Forget our Teachers, Just do as I say!

Last Updated on Tuesday, 6 February 2024, 19:05 by Denis Chabrol

by Retired Read Admiral  Gary Best, LLB; LEC; PhD.

The Jagdeo 2024 budget is a failure! A failure in people development – a fundamental obligation of any government, a failure in preserving the human dignity of the Guyanese family, a failure in human care. Just look at the abject working condition of our public servants and teachers, where their salaries are locked in a political vortex, used as a suasion tool of oppression, and denied them when needed. Only to be released at the pleasure of the PPP! Imagine these are the public servants who nurture our children, defend our nation, and enable the wheels of government to function, so that all other sectors can benefit. Which ‘One Guyana’ President Ali is talking about? All that matters to the PPP is political control, domination, and subjugation of the working poor. 

Led by Dudley Sears, economists generally agree that a “plan which conveys no targets for reducing poverty, unemployment and inequality can hardly be considered a development plan.” All this talk of high GDP and fastest growing economy is not development, except for rising inequalities. And even though the VP should be aware that development consists of much else besides GDP growth, yet this G$1.14 trillion budget is still setting targets mainly based on national income – in simple terms, total population divided total income. If we take two monthly incomes, one at G$ 350,000 and the other at G$ 80,000. The average income would be G$215,000. Immediately, it becomes clear that this type of measurement for development is significantly flawed. But a boast be the PPP. It is a classic example of growth, but no development. 

Development of the Guyanese family must be measured beyond average national income/GDP to avoid confusing development with economic development, and economic development with economic growth. Considerations for development must therefore be centered around employment levels, adequate income and education levels, equality, and social and political comforts. As is the case in Guyana, where real incomes are falling, absolute poverty and unemployment can hardly be reduced. Economists generally agree that if poverty, unemployment, and inequality have declined, which is not the case in Guyana, then this can be classified as development. However, if either poverty, unemployment, or income inequality worsens, as is the Guyana case, that cannot be classified as ‘development’, even if per capita income/GDP doubles.

No doubt, VP Jagdeo is quite aware that rapid increases in per capita income, which the PPP government exceptionally celebrates, are far from enough, since the experience of petroleum economies show that rises in per capita income/GDP can be accompanied by, and even cause, growing unemployment, inequalities, and poverty. And since race is usually highly correlated with income as well, economic inequality lies at the heart of racial tensions. This is the Guyanese case! Consequently, the PPP’s non recognition of the public and quasi-public servants, and teachers as productive entities within the Guyanese economy, is a crucial economic failure that stokes racial, discriminatory, and political tension in the country. What we have in Guyana is ‘growth without development.’ Instead, we are growing inequalities, political strife, marginalization, hunger, and despair. We are developing a more stratified, divided and top elite society, only for a few. 

The Guyanese family no doubt expected the PPP budget to, at least, index senior citizens pensions and public assistance to the national minimum wage; index all other pensions to constant current values; and provide an increase in wages and salaries to public and quasi-public servants, and teachers, corrected for inflation. In case the VP has forgotten, the public service, in its wider sense, is inextricably bound up with the private sector and other state agencies, making it is the essential productive machinery/mechanism that enables tangible productivity in the private and other sectors. It is beyond any measure of economic sense not to reward and incentivise the public service to become even more productive. Instead, no care, no share!

It is trite understanding that local government and governance are critical development inputs. Yet, despite all the talk about the caring for the Guyanese family, the PPP government has its knees on the necks of the RDCs, NDCs, Municipalities and Village Councils. Let’s strangle them seems to be their modus. Consequently, the Jagdeo budget does not address any real fiscal devolution of authority, neither does it promote local government and governance. A country, such as Guyana, where decisions are centrally made and resources centrally dispersed, in spite of second and third tier local government bodies, operates more like a dictatorship rather than a democracy. 

The Guyanese family no doubt expected that with the ‘windfall revenues’ from oil sales, the PPP government would have taken its knees off the necks off Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs), Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs), Municipalities and Village Councils and allow them to be fully resourced and managed by meaningfully transferring to them executive and fiscal authority. One would also think this PPP administration would recognize the value of shared governance via self-governance (SGvSG) as a better model for Guyana to achieve inclusive governance provided for in the constitution. Instead, local government continues to be another term for central government and antithetical to the provisions in the Guyana constitution. As far as the PPP is concerned, who cares? Just do as I say!  

In Part 4, It’s all about a con game on the Guyanese family.

Dr Gary Best is a former Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force, a Caribbean-trained lawyer and the holder of a Doctorate in International Relations. He is also a member of the Central Executive Committee of the opposition People’s National Congress Reform.