When the Stabroek Business paid an extended visit to Region Nine late last year, we had found Lethem and its satellite communities in a condition of less than high spirits, the state of the community’s economy, not least the condition of high unemployment and decline in business in the modest commercial sector and the pressures being felt by the ranching community on account of the intervention of the COVID-19 pandemic that had cost them two successive ‘seasons’ of the Rupununi Rodeo resonating in the outlook of the entire community.
It is difficult to overestimate the extent of the shot in the arm that the Rodeo brings to the Rupununi. Every conceivable business enterprise; from the hotel, food and entertainment sectors to the seasonal vending and odd jobs that attach themselves to the Rodeo, brings something to the Region Nine economy which, over decades, had failed to benefit meaningfully from the incessant promises of socio-economic transformation made by successive political administrations. The communities that we visited late last year, each, in their separate ways, provided evidence of protracted official neglect and the mood of ordinary people suggested that the promises of socio-economic transformation resulting from the country’s oil ‘bonanza’ had either been slow in getting to Region Nine or else it had been greeted with an indifference, even a cynicism, associated with an audience that had been completely worn down by false promises.
