THE government is struggling on all fronts, despite a bankrupted economy and billions in debt, to keep its manifesto promises that would ensue in a land of progressive prosperity for all, despite the machinations of negative and destructive protagonists to stymie and derail developmental initiatives.
“Development with a human face” is a mantra that was coined by Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who recognised all the imperatives of taking people’s empowerment into consideration when planning developmental strategies.

This is reflected in all the successive PPP/C manifestos, and was the prime motivator for Dr. Jagan’s tasking then Finance Minister Bharrat Jagdeo with the formulation of a development strategy simultaneously with a poverty-reduction strategy, with neither being extraneous to the other.
In 1992 the PPP/C inherited a devastated country, a demoralised nation, and a bankrupted economy.  Prior to this, former President Desmond Hoyte had mortgaged this country and its people to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for generations to come.

Former PPP/C President, current Vice-President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo has interesting theories about the IMF and the World Bank – the Bretton Woods Institutions, and they are anything but complimentary in the way they treat with developing countries.

The Hoyte-driven Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), which was part of IMF conditionalities for restoration of funding to Guyana after the country had become bankrupt, had consequences of even greater hardship for Guyanese, among which was freezing public servants wages at $2,000.

Dr. Jagan inherited those economic conditions in 1992 but refused to accede to the IMF’s draconian menu of measures that would have ensued in further funding for this then debt-ridden country from that financial institution, but place greater hardship on the shoulders of the common man.

Only the indomitable will and the famed courage of a leader like then President Dr. Cheddi Jagan could have prevailed over such a powerful institution, especially given the vulnerability of his debt-ridden country, because he overturned Hoyte’s edict and restored bargaining powers to the trade unions, which, during the PNC administration, had been reduced to toothless poodles.

Dr. Jagan recognised that the ‘fiscal cliff’ of the Guyana of 1992 could have been the suicide point for the nation; but he refused to sacrifice the Guyanese people to the then extant financial paradigm.

History has recorded the unrelenting struggle by Dr. Jagan and his Finance Minister Bharrat Jagdeo to bring the debt burden to manageable proportions, so that the ordinary citizens of the land could once more dream of a better life for themselves and their offspring.

Of course, the then opposition collective and their satellites carped, criticised and condemned the two PPP/C leaders for their travels as they sought to alleviate Guyana’s debt burden though debt reduction and/or write-offs, calling them beggars and other derogatory names; but their efforts subsequently paid off and those same naysayers and doomsayers benefited greatly from the consequential upswing of Guyana’s fortunes, but they continue to carp, criticise and condemn.

Any leader of a nation who recognises the needs of its people and creates the nation’s development trajectory to move in tandem with the people’s needs, without fear or favour, but through prioritising of those more pressing areas of needs should be given support.

Instead, as happened under various PPP/C administrations, Guyana’s opposition cabal is fighting the plans of the Irfaan Ali-led administration which inherited, as in 1992, a bankrupted economy, but this time with debts running into the stratosphere, to restore the nation’s creditworthiness simultaneously with the sugar and other sectors, with all its implications for the poor and vulnerable.

In 2018, www.statista.com/statistics/531603/ declared the national debt of Guyana amounted to around 2.05 billion U.S. dollars.
Could one dare to dream that one day Guyana’s opposition political parties will see Guyanese, not as ‘collateral damage’ in their climb to power, but as human beings and fellow Guyanese and stop their race-baiting, divisive rhetoric and actions, but instead join with government in its continued drive for development with a human face?