The promised “Good Life”

The PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition Government is now well past the halfway point of its term of office, in which it promised to deliver “the good life” to the citizens of Guyana. Sadly, by its own measure, that promise has receded even further under this regime, which is characterised more than anything else by the disjoint between its rhetoric and its actions.
The rhetoric for achieving the “good life” was captured in its “joint manifesto”, in which the goals were stated right up front. It began with the need for “healing and reconciliation”, and stated quite clearly this meant: “to acknowledge, embrace and celebrate our ethnic diversity”. It was an acceptance that the plural nature of our society, characterised by ethnic blocks, had led to challenges and ruptures that needed to be “healed and reconciled”. However, the Government’s PNC-dominated APNU block’s immediate miniaturising of its AFC partner — which had given it a tenuous claim to bridging the ethnic divide — dimmed hopes of that “healing and reconciliation”. The hard line against a rapprochement with the PPP effectively destroyed those hopes.
The second goal was “good governance”. This did not so much focus on how the PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition would actually utilise the institutions of government, as increasing the space for citizens’ participation in governance. In other words, it did not equate “good governance” with “good government”. But even by its sophistry, it has failed. To slip into a 21st century law on “cybercrime” the 13th century criminal common law of sedition, which forbids any criticism of the Government that might precipitate “disaffection” towards it, certainly does not deliver the promised “increase in the civil liberties of our people”. The less said about “eliminating corruption and Government waste” the better.
But it is the failure on its goal of “industrialisation and jobs” that the PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition has failed to deliver the good life. While most citizens might not — like the Marxists — scoff at “bourgeois rights” like “civil liberties”, they would overwhelmingly agree that for them, at a minimum, the good life is achieved through their own efforts, by having jobs. “Industrialisation” of our economy, which was founded to produce primary products during the colonial period, has been the mantra of every government since independence.
The first PNC government, between 1964 and 1992, rejected the then dominant “industrialisation by invitation” model, seized control of the economy, and attempted to squeeze profits from the agricultural sector through levies and export controls, to achieve that goal via “import substitution”; but ended up destroying the primary-productive sector without any industrialisation. Its present incarnation is yet to even suggest an “industrialisation” policy, and has emphasised taxing businesses without offering them incentives for industrialising the economy. In the meantime, the primary producing areas have been squeezed through political vindictiveness trumping economic rationality: throwing 7700 sugar workers into the streets, and conceding the loss of the lucrative Venezuelan rice markets.
In its articulation of the third goal of “Fair taxes”, the fundamental muddle of the PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition’s thinking is revealed, and it guarantees that any hoped-for ‘good life” is sure to recede farther with every passing day. The APNU/AFC promised the “fair taxes” would allow the pay checks of ordinary citizens to “go further” and allow “businesses to grow”. One would assume that this implied the Government would cut taxes significantly, but this was never done. Income taxes remain the same, while the 2% reduction of VAT is insignificant.
Under the goal of “fair taxes”, the PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition also guaranteed a “safe and secure society” – which is certainly what citizens envisage as part of the “good life”. Did they mean they would spend the “fair taxes” to increase security? But why confine taxes to security? Is not all Government spending funded by the taxes on citizens and businesses? Even the loans borrowed by governments have to be eventually paid from taxes.
But even security has not been bolstered. Whither the “good life”?