I HAVE noted attempts by former Finance Minister Carl Greenidge to resurrect his fledgling career in the letter pages of the local dailies. In this regard, I wish to give my opinion with respect to Greenidge’s criticisms of the President’s address to youths at the Impress Youth Conference, held on Thursday August 11. In his letter, Greenidge charged that “Guyana is approaching the next general and regional elections, which will have an important bearing on its future, the public, and the young people in particular. Increasingly, we are being made aware of the extent to which corruption, facilitated by the PPP/C government…”, and to this I dare say that Greenidge has no moral authority to lecture us youths, or anyone for that matter, on this subject.
It was Greenidge who formulated and presided over some of the policies which left Guyana in the financial quagmire it was in when the PNC demitted office in 1992.
In fact, Greenidge’s attempt to portray concern for today’s youths should be taken with a grain of salt given that his management of the nation’s finances ensured that every person born in 1992 when the PNC demitted office was saddled with almost US$4,000 in debt around their necks.  It was during Greenidge’s tenure as Finance Minister that Guyana was given ‘basket case’ status, the underlying causes of which were mismanagement, bad policies, rampant corruption and the lack of confidence in the then government by the donor community and multilateral financial institutions.
So, why should Greenidge’s argument be taken seriously now?