Dear Editor,
President Ramotar’s recent charge to the diplomats as reported in the media on Tuesday, July 10, included, among others, the statement that while Guyanese in the diaspora could be encouraged to invest home, “their expertise and skills in various areas could also help to fashion successful development programmes here [in Guyana].”
The President is also reported to have ‘joked’ about the presence of Guyanese all over world, even in obscure places like Iceland. Of course the dispersal of Guyanese talent throughout the world when their skills are much needed here in Guyana is serious enough to be addressed on a more organised scale.
One would therefore look forward to the President to set in motion a well articulated plan for incentivising identifiable skills in the diaspora, to assume responsibilities in publicly declared managerial and other professional gaps at home, through a process sufficiently transparent as to preclude any perception of bias of any kind.
To construct such a programme will require an appropriately constituted task force of relevant skills and with comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of various countries in which Guyanese diasporeans reside, in order to formulate relevant terms of engagement.
Having said the above one feels compelled to repeat the invitation to the administration over the years of utilising similar competencies from the local (Guyanese) diaspora – with specific reference to the sugar industry, with its ‘teething’ pains at the Skeldon Factory, not to mention its growing pains in cultivation, compounded by the ‘dying’ labour turnout.
On his assumption as Minister of Agriculture, Dr Ramsammy (like his predecessor) was addressed by letter of December 28, 2011 bringing to his attention, amongst other things, brief profiles (copy attached) of members of the resident GuySuCo diaspora who had competencies relevant to the industry’s multiple challenges, and available to assist. There has been the most deafening silence since.
It is instructive that the list is headed by a remigrant who was a former Human Resource Director of GuySuCo, and whose skills and productivity have been offered by the United Nations across Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa. Ironically, however, one suspects that if the UN were to offer him to Guyana, he would be accepted. But no such welcome if he volunteered.
The money required to go with the President’s pronouncement would be minimal.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
