A recent report of the World Bank discloses that the “hinterland areas, where only 9.6 percent of the total population resided, housed 64 percent of the Guyanese population with acute deprivation in health, education and standard of living.” The report also referred to latest poverty estimates which show that poverty in Guyana is deepest in the rural interior regions at 73.5 percent.
Yet, when the Government approaches the World Bank – part of the Washington Consensus associated with the most draconian of conditionalities attaching to the Hoyte/Greenidge Economic Recovery Programme – for funding, it imposes on Guyana not conditionalities but what is refers to as “prior action”. So here we have it, the Granger Administration, in return for a loan of US$35 million acquiesces without any hesitation or question to pass four pieces of legislation, none of which address the problems which the Report helpfully discloses but callously disregards. Continue reading “Minister of Finance should not bring Deposit Insurance Act into operation until appropriate rate of premium has been actuarially determined”