AG shows how GuyExpo 2012 proves… : Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s vision being concretised by successive PPP/C Governments : –According to PPP continuum of manifestos

THE vision of Dr. Cheddi Jagan to transform Guyana has been concretised by his acolytes and is now taking wings; and this year’s GuyExpo is a microcosm of the social development and economic growth that is catapulting Guyana onto the world stage through various initiatives that are pioneering new programmes to equalise the dynamics under which mankind exist on Planet Earth. The premier trade and exposition fair in Guyana and the Caribbean has now become a calendar event post- GuyExpo 1994 – the first trade exposition by a PPP/C administration.
GuyExpo has come a long way since then; and central to this year’s theme at GuyExp 2012 is the vision of former President of Guyana, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, indisputably the architect of modern Guyana, for the transformation of this country, beautifully displayed in the Exposition
Acting Minister of Tourism, Irfaan Alli, expressed the expectation that GuyExpo 2012 is now expected to attract several international buyers and sellers, with the potential of creating lucrative business opportunities for local entrepreneurs.
GuyExpo 2012 has attracted and registered in excess of 150 overseas investors, coming from CARICOM nations and various other countries such as Brazil, Barbados, China, India, Canada and the United States of America. The finer details so far show that some 400 micro, medium and large-scale businesses have already registered.
AG says GuyExpo is concretisation of Dr. Jagan’s vision
Attorney-General, Anil Nandlall, said that GuyExpo 2012 is a microcosm of the transformation of this country from 1992 to 2012.
He traced the way successive PPP governments have been working to concretise Dr. Jagan’s vision that he had for this country and its people, and the progress that has been a work in progress, which had been stymied for 28 years, and then re-started in 1992 when Dr. Jagan once again took his place at the helm of this nation.
The capitalist countries and the plantocracy called Dr. Jagan a communist; but he was a humanist, and Nandlall captured the essence of his thinking perfectly.
According to the AG, Dr. Jagan always recognised that the private sector has to be the engine of growth for any nation and in his successive governments he optimally facilitated the progress of and in the private sector.
However, the communism they accused him of was his propagation of his ideal utopia where there was equity of opportunity and where the poor should not be powerless; and he created mechanisms in the constitution to facilitate that progress, which should enable every level of citizenry  to grow with the nation’s parameters of development; and that is why, mere months after assuming a challenging ethos in every aspect of governance, he challenged the private sector into an active dynamism, using GuyExpo as a tool for innovation and expansion.
Dr. Jagan has never been anti-capitalist, but he has always been pro-working-class. However, the powers-that-were saw this as being mutually exclusive, because the plantocracy could not conceive of “blacks and coolies” being uplifted as human beings, granted the same opportunities for advancement, hence their divide-and-rule strategies to destroy Dr. Jagan’s administration, with the “communist” propaganda being the red herring to accomplish their aims.
     
Inequity in socio-economic construct drove struggle
 
“Marxism,” explained Nandlall, “was Dr. Jagan’s medium for interpreting society and its nuances and contradictions, and a tool for finding solutions to then extant problems within the societal construct and by which he could identify the class structure in then British Guiana, and the economic structure that was cruelly oppressive and sustained widespread poverty in the masses.”
He related the way Dr. Jagan was distressed by the level of poverty in the working-class; where he recognised as an imperative the need to change the status quo that ensured an estimated 95% of the wealth and means and factors of production were owned and controlled by the colonials, with a small percentage owned and controlled by local elitists.  Nandlall said that this equated to a tiny 5% owning and controlling 95% of the country’s wealth and resources; with the working-class toiling unremittingly to sustain this status quo, while subsisting under grossly sub-human conditions, with no hope under this paradigm of emerging from their impoverished circumstances; so Dr. Jagan set out on a crusade to change that equation, ably supported by his young, American-born wife, Janet. They both saw politics and a mass political movement as  means to achieving their ultimate aim.
Nandlall averred that his crusade would earn Dr. Jagan the undying enmity of the western and European superpowers as he and the political party that he established – the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), struggled against the powerful local grouping for equity in society, for which he was condemned as “communist”.
The Political Affairs Committee (PAC) and subsequently established PPP, with its women and youth arms were the vehicle by way of which Dr. Jagan first fought for, and won, Universal Adult Suffrage in then British Guiana, and then freedom from oppression from first the colonials, then the local dictatorship, reminded Nandlall, as he continued.
“His vision for this country was not merely a factor, but the raison d’etre for his life-long drive to unleash the potential of labour and ensure that the working-class gets equal opportunities and fair treatment in the socio-economic construct then prevailing, in a sustained and sustainable way; and he propagated what he termed ‘development with a human face’ in word and deed – in and out of office. This he considered to be the bastion of social and economic justice in any just and fair societal configuration.
“He saw government as a means to creating a society of equal opportunity, thus he set out on a quest to take measures to dismantle existent socio-economic structures and eradicate institutionalised poverty and, by extension, exploitation of 95% of the citizenry.”
Nandlall recalled that when Dr. Jagan won his first victory at the polls in 1953, he did so under colonial rule, but even with the limited power internal self-government allowed him he intensified the struggle against institutionalised exploitation of labour.
Jagan’s Night School
“If you examine Dr. Jagan’s tenure in office as Premier – from 1953 until 1964,” posited Nandlall, “you could trace Dr. Jagan’s vision unfolding – in the establishment of the University of Guyana, for instance, because he recognised in education a primary means to extricate the masses from exploitation. The PNC disdainfully referred to UG as ‘Jagan’s Night School’, but it was the first university established in the Anglophone Caribbean.
“Simultaneously he was changing the social systems, hence facilitating a mass exodus of Indians from their logies and former slaves from their shacks into housing schemes, with the Ruimveldt Housing Scheme being the first.   
“His recognition of industry and agriculture as being primary avenues for economic power and empowerment, and consequently social enhancement led to the creation of the industrial estates, with the first being established in Ruimveldt. Ironically, one of Dr. Jagan’s most ardent critic on the bogey of ‘communism’ benefited significantly from the establishment of the yet largest industrial estate in Guyana, the Ruimveldt Industrial Site – the D’Aguair chain, even as current -day critics of the PPP/C are enjoying to the maximum all the progressive things and benefits that the PPP/C administration has provided – not least the near-absolute freedom of speech.”
Developing Guyana’s agricultural potential
The AG continued: “Dr. Jagan unleashed the massive potential in the agricultural sector by implementing policies that saw the establishment of agricultural corridors countrywide – such as the Black Bush and Canals Polders, Boerasirie, among others, majorly on the Essequibo Coast; while equipping farmers in requisite ways and enhancing the D& I structures, so ably crafted countrywide by the Dutch, but decimated by the past undemocratic regime.
“He recognised the need for farmers and other traders to access markets and bridging the three counties was integral to his vision. However, constrained resources then disallowed actual bridges being built across the three major rivers, so he built ferries in an effort to facilitate commuters; but more importantly, as an incentive to augment trade and commerce.
“Realising that agriculture could only be viable in a sustained way if it is pursued through scientific methodologies, Dr. Jagan established the Guyana School of Agriculture, again the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean.”
Nandlall said that Dr. Jagan created structures to foster a conducive environment and opportunity for peaceful co-existence between workers and employers by contributing significantly to institutions such as the Rice Producers’ Association (RPA) and the Trade Union movement; and passed various pieces of legislation to institutionalise legal protection for farmers. He said that the Rice Farmers’ Security of Farmers Act provides legal security for tenure of rice lands; and these were just a minor part of his accomplishments during his first tenure in the executive office, during which period the pressing needs in the social and other sectors – with health, education, social welfare, especially in long-neglected hinterland communities, were addressed, according to priority of needs and available resources.
“So to say Dr. Cheddi was anti-capitalist and anti- private sector – an examination of his achievements in and out of office would prove otherwise. His advocacy and struggles were in pursuit of a fair social system and equal opportunities for all, which he considered central to ‘development with a human face’, and he instituted a regulatory network – spanning decades, that is concretising this vision in a continuum of efforts and achievement.”
Nandlall referred to USA President Obama’s reiteration of that primary Jagan resolution – to pursue the establishment of a just and equitable society, decades after Dr. Jagan began his quest, and after the status quo against which Dr. Jagan had struggled had witnessed a collapse and depression of major economies worldwide, which he posited is arguably due to the absence of requisite regulatory frameworks; even while Guyana’s macro-economic fundamentals remain stable, with progressive and steady economic growth, and enhanced development in the social sector.
    
A dynamic transformation of the national landscape showcased at GuyExpo 2012
Reminiscing, Nandlall recalled that as soon as Dr. Jagan returned to office in October of 1992, he began to re-create the environment to facilitate the private sector to once again become the engine of growth in Guyana, with GuyExpo being the chosen vehicle to showcase Guyana’s potential for growth and development through private/public partnerships, by way of which to encourage local and foreign investments; so mere months after superhuman efforts by all the participants, GuyExpo ’94 was launched on 17th February 1994 under the auspices of then Minister of Trade and Tourism, Honourable Michael Shree Chand.
Nandlall averred: “GuyExpo has since then become larger and grander each year under successive PPP/C presidents.
“This continuity of progress is evidenced in every PPP/C Manifesto – a comparison of which will show a consistent theme leaning towards people’s empowerment and equal opportunities for all; and which sees unity of the Guyanese nation as an imperative prerequisite for achieving the ultimate goals of the PPP/C government, which are peace, progress and prosperity for all Guyanese – a vision which sees, also, our embrace as a nation of the rule of law and constitutional freedoms granted all Guyanese being respected.
“It is a theme that sees a bias toward working people, the poor, and the vulnerable. Currently, one-third of the national budget goes – either directly or indirectly into social programmes in efforts to improve the lives of the working people of Guyana.
“In essence, GuyExpo allows exhibition of Guyana’s potential at every level, from the largest to the smallest expressions of entrepreneurship.
“Any dispassionate, objective assessment of any aspect of Dr. Jagan’s political life will concede that, by his vision, policies and accomplishments, he was a man way ahead of his time.
“Former President Jagdeo continued from Where Dr. Jagan left off and accelerated the momentum; and there is every expectation, given the trust reposed by the Jagans and the PPP executive in current President Donald Ramotar by making him successor to Dr. Jagan as General-Secretary to the political party that the former founded, that the incumbent president will continue this trend of pursuing economic growth and social development with a human face. The baton in the race begun by Dr. Jagan in the 40s to achieve peace, progress and prosperity in Guyana has been handed to successive presidents and now reposes in the safe hands of President Donald Ramotar.”     
Oct 5 would mark exactly 20 years since the PPP took office and began the Herculean task of cleaning the Augean stables left by the past administration.  GuyExpo 2012 could be used as a gauge of the PPP/C’s success at this transformative and developmental feat.   
Nandlall said Dr. Jagan was a century ahead of his time in his visions for Guyana and the world; and these visions are contextualized in successive PPP/C manifestos, which successive PPP presidents have worked to concretise. Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has done an amazing job of aligning Dr. Jagan’s visions with his own to relate to the IT revolution, and that is why His Excellency President Donald Ramotar stressed continuity of governance in his administration; because the PPP’s administration is a work in progress since Dr. Jagan’s emergence in the political world in the 40s; and it is constantly guided, like a lodestar, by the vision of the Father of the Nation.

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