Kenneth King was an outstanding public servant

Dear Editor,
Dr  Kenneth King who died on July 30th 2008, was one of Guyana’s most brilliant public servants.  He loved Guyana and dedicated his life to its development.  That the country’s development never fulfilled his expectations was largely the fault of wavering in the implementation of development plans.  As a country we are easily distracted from the pursuit of development objectives by the imperatives of racial domination.  Dr King’s admirable ideas were the victim of our never ending racial battles.

In my experience, we have failed to honour our public service stalwarts because we view their achievement through racial lenses.  Willie D’Andrade who retired as Governor of the Bank of Guyana and Hubert O E Barker are two superb public servants who passed away almost without notice.  Kenneth King is another.  His most recent masters—the PPP—have apparently not noticed the passing of one who served them loyally in his last public office position in Brussels.

Kenneth King began his secondary education at Queen’s College in September 1941.  His performance at school was well above average but it was not the stellar performance that would have earned him a Percival Scholarship or the even more competitive Guyana Scholarship.  In many respects, he was a late developer whose academic performances outshone those who may have been more highly regarded at Queen’s College.

He joined the Forestry Department as a Forestry Officer but decided that he would pursue a career in law.  He accordingly resigned from his civil service position and left to prepare for law degree exams as an external student of London University.  While in London, he was informed that he was awarded a forestry scholarship to attend Bangor University in Wales.  King decided to return to forestry and took up the scholarship opportunity at Bangor.  At the end of the three year degree course, King graduated with First Class Honours, a rare achievement for scholars in England.  But there was more to come from this extraordinary man.  While studying for his forestry degree, he continued his external law degree studies and, in the few weeks after celebrating his outstanding achievement at Bangor, he wrote the finals for the London University law degree exams.  King was successful in the law degree examination as well.  King had achieved both the rare distinction of graduating from two universities in the same year and obtaining the highest possible distinction from one of the universities.

King went on to Oxford University and completed a doctorate in forestry economics.  From there, he joined the international civil service at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).  He rose to the top levels in the FAO and was deputed to teach in Nigeria.

From that position, King decided to return to make his contribution to the development of Guyana.  He was a breath of fresh air—sharp, smart, perceptive and hard working.  His first assignment was the headship of GUYSTAC, the umbrella organisation that oversaw the public enterprises other than Guymine.  While performing successfully in improving the managements of the enterprises, he was asked to assume the role of Minister of Economic Development.

It was in that latter position that he accepted the leadership in the preparation of the 1972-76 Development Plan, the famous Feed, Clothe and House, or FCH Development Plan.  Willie D’Andrade as Governor of the Bank of Guyana and I, as Chief Economist at the Bank prepared the macro-economic projections of the plan. Donald Augustin, Chief Planning Officer developed the sectoral programmes.  Between us, we conceptualised the policies for plan implementation.

King was superb in refining the work of D’Andrade, Augustin and me.  But we fell short in designing Burnham’s FCH ideas.  Transforming a plantation economy that imported a large part of its inputs for production into an autarkic self-contained feeding and clothing and housing country, was an almost impossible task.  Distinguished Professor Clive Thomas made an effort at such a design in his “Dependence and Transformation” but his work took the analysis to a higher level by looking at the social, political and technological parameters that we had not considered in the 1972-76 Plan.

Even at the lower levels of transformation that we had conceived, the late Sir Arthur Lewis thought that we had not given sufficient consideration to the trade and exchange rate dimensions of the Plan.  Sir Arthur’s observations proved prescient as the oil crisis of 1972 changed exchange rates for ever.  More fundamental, however, was the unwillingness to be disciplined in Plan implementation.  Sugar prices skyrocketed in 1974 and permitted our attention to be diverted to the Upper Mazaruni hydro-electric scheme and away from FCH.  King foresaw the coming balance of payments difficulties and attracted two export projects—a large wood pulp development scheme and a well designed forestry extraction project.  Both were turned away by an inhospitable investment environment.  King was pessimistic about the future and returned to the FAO.

While there, he was asked to direct operations in relieving famine in the Horn of Africa.  His superb management capabilities and persuasive skills were responsible for securing the co-operation of the international community, including the Americans who had approached the famine difficulties with reservations.  King was the acknowledged leader of an operation that averted complete disaster.
His path to higher levels in the international civil service community was assured.  But his heart remained in Guyana.  He returned, at great sacrifice, to work as a Minister in the Hoyte government.  He took a turn at managing the State Planning Secretariat and was the Minister there until the government changed hands in 1992.  He decided then to give further service at the political level as General Secretary of the PNC.  Compared with the high powered positions that he had held in both the domestic and international world, the General Secretaryship was a vastly different challenge that required skills for mobilising and sympathising with a membership that had a culture of disparateness to which he was unaccustomed.  He knew the Party from the days of Burnham when the towering stature of Burnham gave an illusion of cohesiveness among the Party operatives.  It was different under Hoyte.  Ambitions were rearing their heads and King could not cope.
He resigned from the post of General Secretary.

But he was not done.  His commitment to country tempted him to repeat the FCH leadership role in the preparation of the National Development Strategy which the PPP Government claimed that it wanted prepared as a basis for national cohesion and for attracting investment.  King undertook the task with great enthusiasm, perhaps with even more desire than in the FCH because he had seen the disaster of poor implementation in the FCH.

He worked hard and may have over-ridden the better judgments of those who worked with him.  But the brilliance of his thinking is evident in the sectoral programmes.
He had not taken to heart the Sir Arthur Lewis criticisms of the weakness of trade and exchange rate omissions in the Strategy.  He had not worked into the Strategy some modifications of the Professor Clive Thomas’s social and political transformations especially as race had come to dominate politics to an extent even more than it did in 1972.  He had not adequately allowed for the unfavourable investment environment after Dr Jagan had told Stanley Ming to forget the Guyana 21 Plan.  He remained an optimist that his brilliant insights would prevail.

He went to Brussels to work for a PPP government that never appreciated brilliant insights and that was intolerant of King’s brand of democracy.  He knew that he had failed himself in helping to transform Guyana and was bitter at the insults that were hurled at him from far lesser minds.
Ken King was, by the highest standards, a brilliant mind.  He read no fewer than 5 to 6 books every week.  He was a literary giant who was far ahead of his time.  A great man, destroyed by a sad country.
Yours faithfully,
Clarence F Ellis.