CHIEF Investment Officer, Dr Peter Ramsaroop, has slammed the newly launched manifesto by the recently formed party, We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), dismissing it as a patchwork of borrowed policies devoid of innovation or economic substance.
During an airing of “On the Record,” Ramsaroop noted that he was appalled after having a look at the party’s manifesto, which he said appears to be heavily plagiarised.
According to Ramsaroop, after running it through an artificial intelligence (AI) checker, it showed significant plagiarism from many different manifestos in the country.
“Right away, it showed significant plagiarism from many different manifestos in the country, especially the PPP manifesto,” he noted.
He stated that several of the initiatives WIN has laid out in its plan, which included a development bank, business incubators, and ICT reforms, are already being implemented by the Peoples’ Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) government under President Dr. Irfaan Ali.
One proposal he spoke on was a promised 50 per cent salary increase for public servants.
“Imagine fifty per cent. I remember APNU gave themselves a 50 per cent increase when they came in in 2015. They actually bankrupted the economy,” he said
Against this backdrop, Ramsaroop warned that Guyana cannot afford a repeat of economically reckless policy-making, adding that, “When you steal ideas, you have to have some competence behind it to be able to advance and describe what it does.”
He further pointed out that many of the WIN manifesto’s proposals, which included crop insurance, tax incentives for tourism, and initiatives targeting hinterland communities, which he stated mirror those already introduced by the current government.
“So again, this plagiarism, the lack of original ideas, the lack of the ability to even explain what they’re doing is just very, very appalling,” Ramsaroop added.
On the issue of taxes, the CEO defended the government’s track record, saying: “We have taken 200 taxes off of what APNU put on in 2015 to 2020. We reduced taxes, too; we wiped out 200 taxes.”
Against this backdrop, he described WIN’s manifesto as a combination of other people’s ideas presented without depth or clarity and as such warned that if taken seriously could set Guyana back.
“You don’t pull numbers out of your hat. As an economist, I understand the fact that you have to have a plan, a vision for where Guyana is going to be,” he said, while pointing out that President Dr. Irfaan Ali had already outlined a very comprehensive, detailed vision for Guyana 2030 and beyond. The government, he said, has been working aggressively every day to ensure those successes.
WIN’s manifesto was launched on Thursday at the party’s head office in Providence, East Bank Demerara where Presidential candidate Azruddin Mohamed was joined by several candidates, including Vishnu Panday, who was the Guyana Sugar Corporation’s Agriculture Director.