By Imran Khan

A COALITION victory “will trigger a mass exodus so that the U.S. Embassy (in Guyana) will have to clamp down, once again, in issuing visas.” (Bharrat Jagdeo, March 30, 2015)
What has happened? The exact opposite of what Jagdeo predicted. Non-immigrant visas issued at the Georgetown Embassy reached a high of 51,646 in 2016. This compares to a low of 4,786 in 2008. Now one might think that these visas are being issued to people who will overstay their visit, so desperate are they to escape Guyana. Actually no, the suspected in-country overstay rate for Guyanese was a piddling 3.33%.

Just for some historical context, 168,335 Guyanese were granted permanent residency status in the US from 1990 to 2013. That’s 7,318 per year, or 20 every day. So this place was clearly not a bed of roses under the 23 years of the PPP/C. And issuances of immigrant visas in 2017 were 4,127 – down from 4936 in 2010. So no, people are not heading for the exits.

Jagdeo said that were the coalition to win the May 11 elections, the exchange rate, which currently stands at around US$1.00 = US$213.00, would skyrocket to US$1.00 = GUY$500.00 in three years. (Demerara Waves, March 30, 2015)
“People are concerned. There is no money in the banking system. I know of banks that are selling currency at $230 to 1. Things are going to get progressively worse,” (Bharrat Jagdeo, March 13, 2017)
“It then reflects itself in a change in reserves or a deteriorating Balance of Payments position and an exchange rate that will tank. This what is going to put the pressure on an exchange rate that will tank.” Bharrat Jagdeo, December 2016.

FACT: The Guyana dollar/US dollar rate as of May 2018 was G$212.48 as compared to G$205.2 in May 2015 (Bank of Guyana mid-rate average market exchange rates) That’s a decline of 3.5 per cent or 1.2per cent per year. Not a “tank” and not $500 to US$1.

“It is now almost 18 months since Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo returned to Guyana after one of the numerous joyrides and jubilantly announced they would be replacing the squandered Venezuelan rice market with a new market in Mexico. Nagamootoo lied then and has been totally silent since. He has nothing to say now that the Agriculture Ministry again lied that Guyana would be exporting 150,000 tons of rice and paddy to Mexico this year.” (Leslie Ramsammy, 22nd March, 2017)
Oh, this is a good one. In less than a calendar year, Mexico has purchased more than 174,875 tonnes of Guyanese paddy. That’s not us speaking; that’s Mexico’s Ambassador to Guyana in May 2018 talking to Prime Minister Nagamootoo whose 2015 “joyride” secured the deal.

“Rather than assist the rice industry, as we have demanded the Government to do, they are driving more nails into the coffin of the industry” (PPP/C press release, April 11, 2018). The PPP/C would be happy to see the final nail driven into the rice industry’s coffin if it would give them a couple of rice farmer’s votes. But sorry, compared to the first half of 2017, total volume of exports reached 290,000 tonnes, a 43% increase, earning the country G$23.2B as compared to G$16.1B.

“To give them an opportunity is suicide; national suicide, we have to drink some gramoxone together”. (Roger Luncheon at PPP/C Wismar Rally warning of a coalition victory, April 12, 2015) Guyana’s suicide rate has actually been declining from being the highest in the world at 44.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014.