Dear Editor,
Reading our newspapers to keep abreast of what is happening in Guyana, I was jarred by the headline in the Letters section of Kaieteur News of Today, Monday 4th March; 2024: “Pres Ali, a man from a poor background has the temerity to tell workers demanding better, that his regime will not be bullied.” Greatly jarred was I, because that headline says that someone from a poor background like the majority of us, should not be critical of us or seek to direct us, but, presumably, someone from an upper-class background could. If you differ with my understanding, think of what the word “temerity” means.
Having been jarred, I read on. I keep hoping that most if not all of my colleagues who would have lived through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s would have discerned, become reconciled to, and become advocates of some facts that might seem harsh: we have to forego much today to prepare ourselves and our surroundings for us to get better at producing all that we need and desire. Perhaps it is my childhood in a largely self-subsisting, rural family in Mahaicony, that taught me that whilst I advocate today that food (and many other goods and services) are rights, I know that the fields need drainage and irrigation laid in and the land prepared before the cassava is planted, nurtured, reaped, peeled and cooked before setting on a table with chairs around, all produce of our own hands. Our strong needs should be driving us to better ourselves and our conditions.
We should be wondering, how much should we be saving? directing our substance and our work toward a better tomorrow? We may get a feeling for an answer by recalling that the people of our world marveled at the very rapid growth and development of the Asian tigers, so evident in Japan starting in the 1960s, followed by South Korea, Taiwan, and Mainland China. In the 1950s into the 1960s, Guyanese and Guyana were better off than those peoples and countries. Overall estimates suggest that even with the little they then had, they got on to paths of saving and investing 30 to 40% of what little they had, combined with some amount of external help (which they welcomed but did not become dependent on). For periods lasting 50 to 60 years, they were thus able to maintain average annual growth rates of about 10%, doubling their production and income every about seven years, yielding increases of about 100-fold in quantity, quality, and variety in goods and services produced and enjoyed. They rapidly closed the gap with the most advanced peoples and countries and left us far behind. We can and must hurry to catch up. We need to discern that that is the vision that is driving our President.
Yes, we are all worthy of and deserve more: all of us – teachers, all our public servants, nurses, policemen, soldiers; city, town and village workers; owners and operators of speedboats and minibuses; doctors, lawyers, engineers, and business people. Yes, our teachers are the lowest paid in the Caribbean but that is true also for all of us, workers all, whether in the public or private sector, whether paid or self-employed. It would be best for every one of us, whether in the public or private sector, paid servants or self-employed, to each fill ourselves with a helpful, cheerful, and enterprising spirit. It is what has brought me along from where I was.
We should recognize and find pleasure in the progress we have been making since the end of the 1980s, even before the Consortium led by Exxon discovered the oil off our shores. In terms of average per capita GDP, we were in 1992 happily approaching US$500 (per person, per year) whilst Barbados was forlornly stationary at US$ 7,520 (15 times as much) and the USA at US$ 25,400 (50 times as much). By 2015 we were at US$5,670 Barbados at US$ 17,200 and the USA at US$ 56,800; and in 2022 we (Guyanese) were at US$ 18,200 (US$ 14,920 – GNI), Barbados at US$ 20,200 and the USA at US$76,300. We have been closing the GDP earning gap rapidly but we are still far from being rich and prosperous, far from closing the wealth gap accumulated over many years. We still have many things to do. I took notice of the pictures published of the empty school classrooms and, as one who was taking notice at the end of the 1980s, I could not but be struck by the great improvement in our schools and classrooms. We are less starving than before. We are coming to come (as our old people used to say) but not yet there.
The need for us to manage our expectations is made much harder by several provocative statements that are around. True, in terms of barrels of oil discovered we may be the “richest” people in the world, but in the ground, it is still only potential wealth; and we are among the last to have had oil discovered, in the last days of oil being glorious. Oil may no longer be sought after, and who knows what it might be worth in 30 years! Aware of this, we ought to (as we are doing) seek to have maximum quantities of oil recovered and sold, for as long as we may, and optimize investment in ourselves – our health, education, safety nets, current pay rates – and in our infrastructure. And we should keep at the back of our heads, thanks to the tables provided by Dr Hunte, that in the highest producing countries that have been long in the business, it takes no more than US$10 to pump and present a barrel of oil to the market, about US$30 is required now for the oil off our shores. We are not that well placed for any shake out. It is prudent not to let current costs gallop away.
I would like to disclose that I too am also a man from a materially poor background, perhaps even poorer than our President Ali, and being forty or so years older, so much closer to the grave. I wish I were a youth in these days with a chance of building Guyana like the people of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Mainland China did over say 1950 to 2020, and like the people of the USA did over say 1880 to 1950. Let’s make 1990 to 2060 our 70 years of outstanding growth and development.
And in closing, a word to my old colleague, Lincoln Lewis, from our bauxite days, from the 1960s. We should know by now that to overcome our poverty, we of the poor and working classes must grasp all opportunities to enable ourselves to become more productive; we must take up responsibilities; we must all develop the minds that we previously ascribed to only managers and owners, minds that strive to create and accumulate wealth and capacity; goats didn’t bite us, every one of us has within us a sufficient spirit of venturing and enterprise. That is the way, and now is a good time for us to get up and stand up pun we foot; and, let us not be disparaging of any other of us who started from a background as poor or poorer than us, but let us commend what they have made of themselves and appreciate what they are doing to provide us opportunities to enable ourselves.
Yours faithfully,
Samuel A A Hinds
Former Prime Minister and Former President
Ambassador from Guyana to the USA and the
OAS.
