Dear Editor,
MEDIA reports on Guyana leave people perplexed, daily. Television, newspapers, social media all convey varying versions of the country’s actualities.
Most notably, some individuals seek ways on how to bamboozle the average Guyanese, reinventing themselves as experts on oil production and oil revenue, national politics, governmental affairs, poverty, and even on Irfaan and Jagdeo.

These experts – perhaps more appropriately, pseudo-experts – and dedicated propagandists’ relentless attacks on the PPP/C administration leave one wondering how Guyana’s economy and social structural foundation continue to exhibit signs of development and progress never witnessed before.

Let’s focus on two examples since it will take a band of analysts to cover the majority of dedicated anti-government naysayers.
First, in his article of July 18, 2023, in the Kaieteur News entitled, “The state of Guyana today…,” Lincoln Lewis used several phrases and statements to deride the government and country such as: People on “starvation wages,” “government deceit,” “years of mismanagement,” “atrocity committed … by man against man,” “manage nation’s resources in a discriminatory manner as a political weapon,” “living in a land of shrinking freedoms and dignity,” lack of “equitable access to opportunities,” “ among some other choice negative phrases.”

Guyanese who suffered from the late 1960’s to 1992 should sincerely thank Lewis for reminding them what life was like under Burnham-Hoyte-Greene’s regimes.
Every negative description he used in his letter is an apt depiction and stark reminder of the social, economic, and political repressive conditions under Burnham-Hoyte-Greene.

Could it be that Lewis repressed consciousness of the sufferings inflicted on the nation by Burnham-Hoyte-Greene are now manifesting themselves in his confused time-warped hallucinations between then and now? I leave it up to the reader to mull over.
Second, Professor Kenrick Hunte, a man with reputable credentials. Within the last few months, Hunte scripted a few articles through which he sought to promote himself as a notable analyst on oil production, market cost, shares, revenue, etc…
Anyone familiar with statistical analysis quickly realises that the good professor, and former ambassador, presents flawed information. Here’s a look into two of his articles.

(i) In an article June 21, 2023, he stated that he based his analysis “for the period 2020 to 2023.” Yet, he presented figures in his Table One for years 2020, 2021, and 2023. Data for 2022 are clearly missing. Why? Is it to mislead, or misrepresent the facts?
In Table Three, of the same article, he presented price per barrel of oil for 2020, 2021, and 2022, without disclosing if the cost data covered all 12 months of each year. Most people know that the price of oil fluctuates regularly. What statistical analysis did Professor Hunte perform to normalise the data set?

(ii) In his article on July 13, 2023, Professor Hunte claimed his data covered March 11, 2020, to June 16, 2023. The astute reader quickly realises 2020 data was for a period of 9.6 months, and 2023 data presumably covered 5.6 months. Should one then assume that data for 2021 and 2022 are for 12 months?

If, as professor Hunte claimed in his article on June 13, that he used data for year 2020 (supposedly 12 months data), why then did he use only 9.6 months data a month later in his July 13, article? And, by the way, year 2023 is only midway. Where is the data equivalence (monthly/yearly) for the four years on which he claimed he based his analysis?
(iii) In both cases, Hunte utilised secondary data drawn from different sources without testing the veracity of the various data sets/sources.

(iv) His sources of data-information are extremely limited, mostly kaieteurnewsonline, sometimes Investopedia, onepetro.org, and/or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
(v) Overall, Hunte’s analyses are questionable. If he meant them to be comparative analyses, then his use of incomplete data suggests attempts at misrepresentation. If he intended them to be trend analyses, then what statistical methods did he utilize, with error rate specified?

In both of Professor Hunte’s analyses, incomplete and flawed data, do not produce valid results, and trend analyses necessitates long term data and specialized statistical analyses to be valid.
Furthermore, it is erroneous to make predictions using descriptive statistics, and Hunte did predict the depletion of oil in 8.81 years, using such analysis. As Nobel Laurates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo state, “Economists seem to have a compulsion to make predictions that are almost doomed to fail.” Is such the case of Professor Hunte?

The above provides just a glimpse into the multiple flaws in Hunte’s analyses, including his use of IMF data. As the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the IMF stated in a 2016 report:
…there have been instances where data inadequacies have led to a wrong assessment of a country’s situation … Instances of data that subsequently prove to be wrong or incomplete are probably quite frequent … Most of those involved the fiscal deficit and its finances and the level and liquidity of the central bank’s international revenues.

The quote from the IOE leaves one with concerns about Professor Hunte’s intent on (a) not testing the validity of the data he continues to use, and (b) in utilizing incomplete data from questionable sources to draw conclusions and make predictions. As the saying on flawed data goes “Garbage in Garbage out (GIGO).”

Professor Hunte should reassess his presentation of flawed analyses which he then utilises to claim that the government needs to renegotiate the oil contract, an oil contract which he does not disclose the APNU+AFC government negotiated in 2016. Why then he insists that the PPP/C renegotiate a fixed contract that resulted from the incompetence of the APNU-AFC government is in itself perplexing.

Despite the daily barrage of attacks, the PPP/C government continues to steer Guyana on a steady course of development and progress.
But, it seems, that the discovery, and black colour of oil, have darkened the hearts and minds of some, and gave rise to the formation of a new occupational category called professional critics and bamboozlers.

This professional group of critics and bamboozlers invent and reinvent ways to discredit or destabilize the government. Daily they fabricate analyses, hurl insults at the government, or at Irfaan and Jagdeo, and any other with whom they disagree, all the while ignoring and downplaying the fact that People Prefer Progress Completely (PPPC).
Regards,
Narayan Persaud, PhD
Professor Emeritus