Hiding the reality in oil rich but poverty-stricken Guyana

During one of his recent press conferences Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton decided to quote the 2022 World Bank report on Guyana. That report did not paint the glowing picture one would have expected, given the newfound oil wealth.

Over the past two years, between August 2020 and August 2022 the national coffers got a large outlay of cash. The extra money was somewhere in the vicinity of US$700 million from the oil revenue.

At one stage, the plan was to have the windfall placed in what became known as the Natural Resources Fund. But this cash-strapped nation decided to make maximum use of the windfall. It withdrew the money from the fund and began to spend.

Money was spent on infrastructure although the government kept borrowing. Then there was the distribution of money by way of cash grants. Huge sums were paid to fishermen, farmers and to cane cutters.

Money was given to the Mon Repos market vendors who suffered some vandalism during a protest for justice into police shooting to death 23-year-old Quindon Bacchus of Golden Grove, East Coast Demerara.

Mr. Norton made a lot about the poverty rate of 48 per cent. This simply meant that nearly half of the people in Guyana are poverty-stricken. And this is in an oil rich country. Such a comment would hurt and it did hurt the government.

The person performing the duties of Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh, decided to take to the airwaves to refute Norton’s contention. He said that Norton was painting the People’s Progressive Party in a bad light. Roughly put, he meant that Norton was making the PPP look bad.

In a four-minute recording, Ashni Singh then went on to offer an explanation. The first thing that he did was to blame the 48 per cent poverty rate on the Coalition government. He said that the World Bank was using figures from 2019. And he was correct.

He went further. He said that in 2019 the Coalition was in office. The figure therefore reflected conditions during the coalition government. He then informed the nation that the country was at the crisis stage.

But the report said that in 2006 when Ashni Singh was the finance minister, the poverty rate was 61 per cent. That information was never made public. If at 48 per cent the nation was heading toward a crisis, one must wonder what was the state of the nation when the poverty rate was 61 per cent.

The Minister then said that Guyana was at this stage of its development, a middle-income country. That was nice to hear. But the World Bank did not make much of this designation.

Poverty in Guyana, measured using the upper-middle income poverty line (US$5.50 per day in 2011 PPP) has dropped from close to 61 percent in 2006 to around 48 percent in 2019, but was still among the highest in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. That was according to the World Bank.

As of September 16, 2022, poverty is estimated to have increased. In 2020, 71.6 percent of Guyanese households had experienced income loss compared to January 2020 levels — with the most severe impact typically found in low-income households.

Non-oil GDP partially recovered with 4.6 percent growth in 2021, though it remains below pre-pandemic levels.

The World Bank added that negative impacts of the pandemic on household income, food insecurity and children’s education persisted in 2021 with about half of households (49 percent) reportedly experiencing lower total household income compared to the period before the pandemic.

Ashni Singh ignored this aspect of the report, and for good reason. It did not paint the picture that Ashni Singh was attempting to paint when he laid blame for the 48 per cent poverty rate at the door step of the Coalition.

With all its oil wealth the country was not doing better than it did in 2019 if the World Bank report is to be accepted.

Ashni Singh contended that Norton could not take the time to read the report. Perhaps it was a good thing that he didn’t. He would have been more scathing.

There has been no money for the public servants who make up the bulk of the public working class. At the same time prices keep rising and the government has no plan to contain runaway inflation.

I can only conclude that these people—the public servants– comprise a significant portion of those living in poverty.

Of interest in Guyana is the race to score political points. A high poverty rate in 2019? Blame the Coalition. A higher poverty rate in 2006? Keep quiet.

Do the same when the poverty rate rises in 2020 and 2021.

Sadly, most Guyanese do not read, so reports on the state of the country go unnoticed. Instead, they choose to listen to the politicians who put their own spin to make their party look good. The truth does not matter.

The World Bank did say that statistics were not available for the years following 2019. Should someone put a political spin to this shortcoming?