Dear Editor,
It was encouraging to see the recent contribution to the discourse on Guyana’s development by my mentor and former colleague in the Department of Economics of the University of The West Indies, Professor Compton Bourne. As a former President of the Caribbean Development Bank and distinguished emeritus professor who has been UG Chancellor among other contributions to that institution, Professor Bourne has much to offer.
There can be no dispute about the importance of the factors he highlighted in his article, entitled: “Guyana on the right path to economic transformation” (Stabroek News Daily Features, 30 May), but this article omits to address fundamental dimensions of Guyana’s reality, thereby somewhat misrepresenting that reality.
Professor Bourne highlights two main areas, namely economic diversification, with particular attention to agriculture, manufacturing and eco-tourism, and infrastructure investment with particular attention to transportation, water management, health and education. Who can dispute the importance of these areas in Guyana’s development going forward? These have all been part of the conventional wisdom of priority needs for the country for decades. The difference these days is the premise that the oil industry will provide the financial resources to lift the financial constraints that have been obstacles to development in the past. One gets the sense that we now have money we can throw at our problems.
This approach ignores the critical institutional failures which is where our main obstacles lie. Were it not for those failures, we did not have to wait for oil money to develop. And unfortunately, the country continues to experience what Professor Nigel Westmaas calls “societal decay at all levels” (See, OPINION: The struggle to dominate ‘Exxon Guyana’: The strategy and tactics of the PPP State, Demerara Waves, 1 June), and institutional conditions continue to deteriorate even as oil revenues begin to flow.
The country continues to be in the grip of a completely unsuitable governance structure with a toxic atmosphere of political acrimony and disaffection that cannot signal a path to progress. It has a winner-take-all parliamentary system that legitimizes autocratic rule, where representativeness and accountability are lacking, service commissions are on the books but are stymied in their functions, and an electoral system and Elections Commission in dire need of reform.
While the evidence of big spending is everywhere, a coherent strategy for poverty eradication is absent, and one is left with the assumption that the Government is banking on an ad hoc trickle-down approach, along with appeasement through cash distributions from time to time. The current Stabroek News series based on interviews of citizens about how cost-of-living conditions are affecting their lives suggests that this strategy is failing, as is the continuing high level of emigration from this oil-rich land.
I hear frequent comments by fellow citizens that this is ‘a lawless country’ where money talks and the police force operate as henchmen for the Government instead of upholding law and order and protection for all. The recent fire in Mahdia that claimed 20 children’s lives is being pinned on a 15-year-old child, while there is a good chance (if experience is anything to go by) that there will be no repercussions for the abysmal failures of the responsible institutions, the relevant ministries (Education, Home Affairs, etc.), the security institutions and the Regional Authorities. It is also disturbing to hear of the police shooting to death a man initially reported to be unarmed. If he was armed, there are serious questions about why he was allowed to be armed in the circumstances. As citizens, we must stand up for the observance of due process under the law because it is there for the protection of all of us.
All these conditions conspire toward increasing instability that cannot be consistent with progress toward economic transformation. The widely acknowledged ethnic insecurities that have driven Independent Guyana’s political life are not being addressed convincingly and effectively, as Westmaas has observed. Criticism of government actions by civil society organizations and individuals is met with aggressive hostility, while a culture of fear of recrimination and victimization for any such criticism is being cultivated. Meanwhile, the party in power dominates the government-controlled media unashamedly, and media personnel face aggression from major political parties.
Best regards,
Desmond Thomas, PhD
Economist
