The Lethem community, more particularly the business community there, appears hopeful rather than optimistic about the prospects of a Rupununi Rodeo being staged this year.
Another year without the customary financial ‘fix’ that the township gets from the Rodeo could create even greater challenges for a community that is already considerably economically depressed. Still no one seems inclined to place a meaningful bet on a rodeo this year. The portents afforded by the sustained menace of the COVID-19 pandemic does not allow for that level of optimism.
President of the Rupununi Chamber of Commerce, Daniel Gajie, prefers to proffer a more macrocosmic view of the township, it socio-economic circumstances and its future. Gajie is not inclined to ‘pull punches’. There is, he says, an urgent need for central government “to stop the haphazard planning that has been occurring in the Rupununi for several decades. There is need for a permanent development plan that can span approximately thirty years and continue whether or not there is a change in Ministers or Government.”
