I RECALL giving a “thumbs up” to my son Ernesto as I was being moved from the operating theatre, after my open-heart surgery. Had it not been for the contraptions in my throat, I would have shouted, joyously “Good morning, Guyana!”
It has been three weeks since that eventful Valentine’s Day, and I want to personally thank all those kind-hearted persons who have given support and encouragement to Sita and my children. Though I could hardly wait to return home, I am under doctor’s advice to complete the process of rest and recovery. But, to borrow Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career-defining statement, “I’ll be back!”
POLITICAL MOBILITY
With both President Granger and I being temporarily out of the jurisdiction, I also wish to congratulate my colleagues, Carl Greenidge and Khemraj Ramjattan, on their appointments to perform the functions of the offices of President and prime minister, respectively. Their placement re-affirms our commitment to political mobility, as well as confidence in our Cabinet team as a collective to smoothly guide the development agenda.
This is not easy when new problems and challenges emerge that put a strain on limited human and financial resources, such as periodic flash floods caused by high tides, as was the case with several West Demerara villages, where there was overtopping of the seawalls.
When we re-look at the videos of the ferocious waves that slammed against the Leonora and Uitvlugt seawalls, it must dawn on us that episodes such as those, though not earthquake-related, tsunami-like floods, are features of climate change and that it would take greater efforts to protect our coastal areas. Floods from high tides and heavy rains also do damage to crops and livestock upon which our economic growth largely depends.
ECONOMIC GROWTH
I have just read a study by the British Department for International Development (DFID), with which Guyana has on-going engagements, on economic growth in developing countries. It shows how growth speeds up reduction of poverty and creates jobs. Vietnam, which has been ravaged by wars for some 20 years, became a model of economic growth, with poverty being cut by half, even though average gross domestic product (GDP) was 2.4% a year.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) lifted over 450 million people out of poverty since 1979, and India has shown an impressive growth record that has made her one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. (Dani Rodrick, Harvard University, “One Economy, Many Recipes”, 2007). Effective financial management with economic growth stimulate rise in income levels and though Guyana has hovered around 3% growth, we have seen an almost 50% increase in public sector income over a three-year period (2015-2018).
My fervent hope is that we can continue to step up the drive in agriculture, aqua-culture and livestock production, at the national and family levels. When I was in Vietnam during 1996, one of the things that struck me was that every inch of land seemed to have been under paddy cultivation; even the bed-heads and parapets of dams leading to houses.
HOUSEHOLD INCOMES
And off the sea-coast, portions of the mud-flat were empoldered with bamboo, to which seines were attached, to keep in fish and crabs that were washed up to shore during the incoming tides. Paddy cultivation and fishing in Vietnam, have since pushed up household incomes and reduced the number of employable persons who had depended on “government jobs”. Today, Vietnam has moved forward into the technological age. But the spinoff effects from agriculture resulted in more families being able to provide better education for their children, and to access improved health care for them.
In the last few days, as I travelled through vast Iowa farmlands, I see farmers weathering the fading winter snow, to prepare their lands for fresh spring crops in corn and soybean. I see, interspersed between vast stretches of land, pig, cattle and turkey farms. My heart pumps up with optimism, as what has become celebrated as the “American Dream” could become the Guyana reality, where we could have both food security and job-creating economic growth.
ENTREPRENEURIAL AMBITION
We may not be able, for now, to do things on the giant commercial scale as in the American Mid-West, but there have been good examples right in our Latin American Region, where micro-enterprises have pushed economic growth and increased jobs by some 60% since 1990. We need to encourage and support what was described as “entrepreneurial ambition.”
I have decided to revisit our food-security ambition since, from what I have read, much emphasis continue to be placed on our oil-producing potential, with the seventh oil discovery in the Pacora – 1 well. According to Hess, this could bring production to more than 500,000 barrels of oil per day, just two years away.
OIL BONANZA
But we cannot sit back and wait on the oil bonanza, although that would provide much over which Guyana would bask in satisfaction, even while the polemics continue over control of the oil sector. The decision therefore to delink the oil-and-gas sector from direct political management is an astute move.
I expect that the Ministerial Task Force would ensure that provisions are made for future key infrastructural and social projects, but would also recognise that a broad-based managerial-technical administration would give comfort to all, that the new resources would not be frittered away on partisan or questionable ventures.
The latest decision to place oil and gas under a separate Department of Energy and the intended broadening of the functions and scope of the Petroleum Commission would go a far way to lessen what Steve Coll described as “resentful nationalism and suspicion” (Private Empire – Exxonmoibil and American Power) of a valued partner that has struck first-oil, and has since enviably placed Guyana on the new map of the world.
For now, and again, good morning, Guyana!
