Dear Editor,
MOUTH open, story jumped out. Aubrey Norton, the PNC and APNU leader, while conceding that David Granger, the failed former president, is highly unlikely to campaign on his behalf and for the PNC, believes that the Granger-led APNU+AFC government did a good job, had good policies and that he would follow those same policies, should his party emerge victorious in Elections 2025.

Therefore, we now know from the “horse’s mouth” directly that the Aubrey Norton-led, PNC-led APNU’s big promise for Elections 2025 is to repeat the same mistakes the David Granger-led, PNC-led APNU+AFC government made.
This is an ominous signal and must frighten the Guyanese people. In Elections 2020, the Guyanese people rejected the policies and actions of the 2015-2020 Granger-led APNU+AFC government.

In Elections 2025, I am confident that the people will again overwhelmingly reject those failed policies and actions.
The Granger-led APNU+AFC government broke every single promise it made for the 2015 elections. Now Norton is insisting that the Granger playbook, Granger’s “proper government” will be his mantra – making lofty promises and then betraying people by not keeping any promise.
They had promised to double old age pension; double the income tax threshold; reduce VAT to 10 percent and give a 20 percent salary increase to public servants in their first 100 days in government. They kept none of these promises.

Old age pension increased from $15,000 (2014) to $20,500 (2020), an increase of only 27 percent over five years, far from the doubling they had promised in the first 100 days — a failed promise.
The income tax threshold went from $50,000 per month (2014) to $65,000 (2020), an increase of a mere 30 percent in five years, far from the doubling in the first 100 days, a total betrayal of the workers.

Not only did they fail to implement the 20 percent pay increase for the public servants in the first 100 days, they did not even deliver it in any one of the five years in government.
But recall, they did give themselves in cabinet and for other high government officials a 50% to 100 percent increase in pay and benefits.
VAT was never touched in the first 100 days and when they did touch it in 2016, they reduced it to 14 percent, but added new VAT, such as VAT on water and electricity bills, education, internet, health products, etc…, increasing the overall VAT burden on the people.

For good measure, they increased more than 300 other taxes. The Guyanese people rejected these policies.
Let us examine some of the other failed policies Norton and the PNC promise to repeat.

Aubrey Norton wants to repeat Granger’s sugar fiasco. After promising not to close any sugar estate in 2015, not to fire any sugar worker and to give sugar workers a 20 percent wages and salaries increase, the Granger-led APNU+AFC closed four estates, fired more than 7,000 sugar workers, and froze sugar workers’ wages and salaries, giving them zero pay increase for five years. This is what Norton offers sugar workers and Guyana.

In fact, in a recent press conference, Norton confirmed that sugar will be dead under a new PNC-led government.
He did not have the honesty nor the guts to speak in clear language; he, instead, asserted that GuySuCo will be “diversified,” with the assets “reassigned” and that, among other things, GuySuCo will be assigned to build houses.

The Guyanese people rejected this policy in Elections 2020 and will reject these policies again in Elections 2025.
The “Because We Care” Cash Grant for schoolchildren was introduced by the PPP in 2014 and was supposed to move from $10,000 per child in 2014 to $50,000 per child by 2020. The Granger-led APNU+AFC government took away this money from children.

At the $10,000 per child level in 2014, assuming no increases, it means the PNC-led APNU took almost $11B from the children.
Today, the PPP government has reintroduced and increased the schoolchildren’s cash grant to more than $55,000 per child, or more than $11 billion in 2025 alone. In Elections 2020, the people rejected the callous ending of the Because We Care cash grant that robbed the children of Guyana between $2 billion and $10 billion annually, between 2015 and 2020. Will we allow the PNC to again rob our children?

Granger had promised young people free university education and thousands of new jobs. Instead, Granger’s APNU+AFC government proceeded to increase university fees and told the young people that the government has no obligation to create jobs for them, that they should take responsibility for their own lives by selling plantain chips, cook-up and dog food on the roadsides.
Let us not forget how they betrayed our farmers. They had promised rice farmers $9,000 per bag, then turned around and told the rice farmers that they were private investors, not government business. They took away subsidies and increased agricultural land leases.

They literally closed the housing programme, giving themselves large acreages of land. They stopped the Amerindian Land Titling and took away jobs from 2,000 Amerindian CSOs.
They failed to construct any new school, any new hospital, including the ones that were already provided for by the PPP.
They failed to improve the road-and-bridges network, including those that were already started under the PPP. Projects such as the modernisation and expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, the East Bank Highway, the East Coast Highway, the West Demerara Highway corridors, started under the PPP, had to be completed when the PPP came back into government.

They squandered the total amount of the local currency reserve at the Bank of Guyana and accumulated an enormous overdraft; they sold out almost all the gold reserves and squandered the majority of the foreign currency reserves. They increased the foreign debt to GDP ratio and increased the debt-service payments.
In every aspect of governance, the Granger-led, PNC-led APNU+AFC was a miserable failure – bad policies, broken promises and total betrayal of the people. Now Norton promises to repeat the Granger-led failure.

It is frightening, but pathetic. In the face of the great exodus of senior members from his party, one would have thought that Norton would apologise to the Guyanese people for their past failures and betrayals and promise a different PNC for Elections 2025.

Never in its history has the PNC ever stared down the barrel to see the bottom so clearly. It is where they will be after September 1.
Elections 2025 will always be a brutal memory for the PNC. This will be Aubrey Norton’s legacy, an albatross that will hang heavily around his neck for the rest of his life and forever for the PNC.
Yours respectfully,
Dr Leslie Ramsammy