Dear Editor,
I read an article in the news during December 2022 regarding a statement from Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on salary increases being part of the comprehensive economic strategy. First off, I want to thank him for his government’s efforts at pumping some $11 billion in 2022 to support all sorts of workers from public servants to police to nurses to sugar workers. I also want to be on record commending him for his leadership on the oil and gas issues. The evidence will illustrate that without him, Guyana would have been saddled with more incompetence in the negotiation room, as was experienced when Raphael Trotman was at the helm, because Vickram Bharrat has proven to be even more incompetent than Trotman when it comes to the oil and gas issues.
But the Vice President’s scheme to pay 11,000 workers a sum of $40,000 for 10 days’ of work is counterproductive to national development and is destroying the work ethics across this country, especially in Region 5 and Region 6. To develop those areas require a focused and financed agricultural work program that will expand productive work opportunities on all fronts; not sitting around in NDC offices and in community schools. This part-time scheme has diverted critical human capital away from productive work in the agriculture sector to non-productive activities; potentially permanently damaging the attitude to real work by many of our brothers and sisters. All these people are doing under this $40,000 per month program is showing up, do very little and get paid.
1 am expressing my deep sense of anguish at this situation since the evidence from this social experiment is revealing that it is not revitalizing the work ethics in our people; rather it is converting able bodied human beings into economic courtesans. What this Jagdeo part time work program has done is fail to improve opportunities at gaining a long term skill set. This is not how you build a sustainable economic base for people who live in these villages; they will always have to put their hands out to beg for something else. There is nothing wealth creative about the Jagdeo part time work program. Actually this Jagdeo part time work program has failed to enhance the local infrastructure in the villages; has failed to create new role models as men and women who are engaged in dignified economic activity, but worse it has created a critical artificial shortage of labour for many businesses.
There is no rationality or nothing sensible about the Jagdeo part time jobs program. Definitely it is not a comprehensive economic strategy; this is a ploy at a cheap political handout by Mr. Jagdeo that is designed to economically enslave the poorer class of people. What this Jagdeo part time program has done is starved the agriculture sector of able bodied workers and is not contributing to the skills upgrade of the 11,000 persons involved. This program ought to be abolished because the long-term economic loss is larger than the short-term social gains. So when you are wrong Mr. Jagdeo, you must be told because I voted for you.
If Mr. Jagdeo wants to do something for these people, he should take on-line schooling to them and teach them new skills. If he wants to help these people, he should pay for two years free Wi-Fi services for them and provide them with a free desktop computer so that they can go to school online from their homes and get paid for time spent in school learning a new skill.
If Mr. Jagdeo wants to help these people, he should prepare mobile schools for them (see what happens in India) that go into their villages and teach them core skills like welding.
I trust that this statement will be taken in the constructive mindset as I offer it since it is not personal.
Sincerely,
(Name and Address Provided)
