THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its World Economic Outlook released

Monday, predicts that Guyana is expected to see the second highest economic growth rate for South America in 2014, just behind Peru.
According to the IMF, Peru is forecast to have the highest economic growth rate of 6.1 percent and the lowest inflation rate in South America in 2014, followed by Guyana at 6 percent; Bolivia- 5 percent; Chile and Paraguay at the same rate of 4.6 percent; Colombia and Suriname each pegged at 4.5 percent; and Brazil and Uruguay at the same level of 4 percent.
Meanwhile, the countries predicted to register the lowest economic growth are Venezuela with 2.3 percent; Argentina pegged at 3.5 percent; and Ecuador with 3.9 percent.
This is certainly good news for Guyana and South America, especially when one considers the difficult global economic climate which is creating havoc with many countries, both developed and developing ones.
Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde in her article in January this year entitled:
A New Global Economy for a New Generation, pointed out:
“I know we are all still deeply concerned with the state of the global economy. Where do we stand? Well, thanks to policy actions taken over the past year, we have seen some respite and some stabilisation in financial conditions.
“But it is not all good news. The recovery is still weak, and uncertainty is still high. As the IMF announced just a few hours ago in our World Economic Outlook, we expect global growth of only 3½ percent this year, not much higher than last year. The short-term pressures might have alleviated, but the longer-term pressures are still with us.
“As I have said recently and it bears repeating: we have avoided collapse, but we need to guard against any relapse. 2013 will be a make-or-break year.”
In this difficult global financial environment, Guyana has recorded seven consecutive years of growth averaging about five percent. This clearly shows that those tasked with managing our economy has been doing an astute and prudent job and must be commended.
The remarkable performance of our economy has really touched the nerve of the political opposition and their cynical allies. As such, they are making every effort to stall progress, mainly through the budgetary cuts to key projects including the Amaila Falls hydro project;the CJIA expansion and modernisation project; the specialty hospital as well cuts to GPL’s subsidies and maintenance projects for hinterland airstrips, among others.
The leader of one of the opposition parties offered a laughable and nonsensical explanation of why the cuts were made, stating that they do not want the country to become more indebted.
The fact is under this government the national debt has been reduced from US$2.5 billion to US$1.5 billion and with a bigger economy this is being comfortably managed, unlike the days when 94 cents out of every dollar was for repaying debts and the then government had to borrow to repay interest on loans.
So the explanation for the cuts given by the leader of that political party is pure balderdash.
In addition, these projects would be income-generating ones or would be helping to save money or both, so any talk about not making the country more indebted does not bear any semblance of logic.
What seems to be a more logical and plausible explanation for the budget cuts is their thirst for political power and their plan is to do everything to stall progress with the hope that the people of this country would become disenchanted with the government and come elections, the electorate would vote it out.
But the opposition has underestimated the intelligence and political savvy of the Guyanese people and that is a terrible miscalculation on their part, which will be seen at the appropriate time.