Dear Editor,
In his letter captioned ‘Contrary to what the newspapers report Guyana is on the move’ (SN, October 6) Dr Randy Persaud measures progress and development by the amount of fast-food outlets established in Guyana, and he proudly listed them.
Can Dr Persaud please list the new manufacturing enterprises established in Guyana since 1992?
I can provide him with a list of dozens of industrial and manufacturing firms that have closed since 1992 and some that scaled down their operations due to the high cost of fuel and electricity. There is now a new measuring rod for economic progress: fast-food restaurants.
He mentioned that GuyExpo attracted over 25,000 Guyanese last Sunday. Last Sunday, I had the whole seawall for myself as the usual liming crowd went to GuyExpo for a change of entertainment. GuyExpo should be renamed GuyImpo or GuyInfo as almost all the booths had imported items. Why were the GRA and the police allowed to have booths at an exhibition that was supposed to promote and seek export markets?
The Minister of Trade and Tourism in his opening remarks at GuyExpo stated that land was available for development for US$5 per acre and he even quoted a Barbadian politician to substantiate his statement. Well, I would like to purchase ten acres for agricultural purposes, so perhaps his ministry could facilitate my request and demonstrate that this is not just political propaganda.
Randy Persaud continues to observe development in the health sector by listing a few health centres that were constructed, but I would like him and the ministers to get their medical treatment at these centres instead of going to the USA, Canada or Trinidad.
The poor Guyanese who visited these newly constructed health centres have to wait hours to get treatments in certain cases; medicines are not always available and the foreign doctors sometimes can hardly speak English.
We are seeing a lot of progress in Guyana where people cannot get drinking water from their taps and blackouts are an everyday occurrence. Old timers can tell you that we used to drink water from standpipes at street corners. Today we have to buy bottled water – progress indeed.
What progress have we made in the justice system? In the past we have never heard of judges, magistrates and civil servants having to take the government to court for their benefits.
What about all those unsolved murders? The shooting of Ms Van Beek, the Lindo Creek slayings, the Lusignan slayings, the Bartica slayings and over two hundred Guyanese killed by the so-called phantom squad.
Why does Guyana have the highest suicide rate in the Caribbean?
Happy people do not kill themselves. Never before in Guyana were there so many reported incidents of incest, domestic violence, homosexuality and bestiality. Is this a new form of progress and development?
Recently the UNDP rated Guyana at 114th space in the world in their Human Development Index. The same report stated that Canada is the 4th best country in the world to live in and the US got 13th space, two countries Dr Persaud criticized in his letter.
In another report the UNDP stated that one out of every three Guyanese migrated to other countries. Are the Guyanese people so stupid to migrate and leave a happy and progressive land like Guyana?
As the saying goes, ‘Guyanese will do anything to leave Guyana.’
Yours faithfully,
Balwant Persaud
