IT is amazing how much life has changed over the past two decades or so. This is reflected, among other ways, in the increasing number of Guyanese who today own  homes and who participate in cultural and recreational activities. There was a time when owning a home and a car was a distant dream for most people. The average Guyanese was so preoccupied with putting bread on the table that they hardly entertained the thought of owning a home, much less owning a vehicle.
Today, owning a home is no longer a distant dream. Over 70,000 house lots have been developed and distributed since the assumption of the PPP/C to office in 1992, an extraordinary achievement given the relatively small population size.
The success of the government housing policy is all the more spectacular when seen against the huge housing deficit which the previous PNC regime bequeathed the nation. Of the 65000 houses promised  Guyanese during the much-touted “Feed, Clothe and House the Nation” programme, a paltry 13,000 were actually realised, and only to some card-bearing members.
As for feeding and clothing the nation, the reality was even more disastrous. The average Guyanese was catching hell to survive and basic food items were either in short supply or outside the reach of the ordinary people.
Instead of addressing bread and butter issues, the regime resorted to sloganeering. Thus the small man was supposed to be the “real” man. When this failed, Guyanese were exhorted to “eat less, sleep less, and work more”. What the regime failed to realize was that people could not have worked on  hungry bellies. Guyanese who could have afforded to do so departed the shores of Guyana in droves, resulting in a severe brain drain and a consequential drop in labour productivity. By the end of the 1980s, Guyana was ranked among the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, second only to Haiti in per capita income.
These are facts that cannot be wished away or erased from our collective memory, despite attempts by some writers and  “analysts” to whitewash and/or re-invent our history.