The PPP Has Stolen In Excess Of Two Decades from

Bringing Guyana Into the 21st Century

commissioned in 2008, now seemed bleaker even as the factory itself suffered more than a few hiccups. The general welfare of the population continued to drag alongside the unexplained expansion in wealth of some members of society. Notwithstanding the absence of official information on the subject, the perceived persistently high rate of unemployment weighed heavily, and public services in health and education suffered tremendously. Significant numbers of maternal and infant deaths were reported, with the circumstances seeming cruel and meaningless in some instances. Public servants, after the bitter 57day strike in 199911, resigned themselves to government’s average annual 5 percent salary increase from 2002. Persistently high unemployment12 and government’s lax policing of labor relations contributed to significantly more depressed earnings for junior and supervisory staff in some sections of the private sector. Concerns in the international community had been continually expressed regarding the PPP administration which allowed Guyana to be used as a transshipment point in the narcotics trade and in facilitating money laundering13 . While playing a lesser role, the administration also had in its baggage ties, which it continues to deny, to a known drug lord14, who was fingered as the leader of a death squad which engaged in murder and mayhem until his capture in Suriname in 2006. Many of the crimes committed during this drug lord’s reign remain unsolved today. Overarching all of this, a former president during the PPP’s reign15 had managed to build an economic power structure across the majority of the economy which had never before been placed in context.

11 Stabroek News - Many 1999 Strike Issues Still Unresolved; Feb 11, 2010. 12 Stabroek News - Youth unemployment in Guyana around 40% – CDB; May 22, 2015. 13 Stabroek News - Drug Traffickers Have Guyana In Their Sights – US State Department, March 04, 2003. http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/guyana/sights.htm 14 Stabroek News - Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan: Drugs, Dirty Money & The Death Squad; August 20, 2009. 15 Kaieteur News - Perspective on Jagdeonomics’; Nov 5, 2015. 4