PRESIDENT David Granger is also Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR). His address to that party’s 19th Biennial Delegates Congress on Friday, 26th August offers insight not only into the history and focus of the party, but more so what will help influence and shape the policies and programmes of A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Government. The address dealt with several issues such as the legacy of the PNCR and its Founder-Leader Forbes Burnham, interest in a politics of cooperation, pursuit of national unity and social cohesion, and the Green Economy, the latter being the focus of this editorial.

The Green Economy has three planks- Sustainable Development, Labour Policies and the Environment- and development is determined by the Human Development Index (HDI). While emphases in the address were placed on sustainable management of the nation’s resources and greening of the environment, it is believed that the inattention to labour policies was an oversight, given the equal importance all three planks play.

Burnham and J.P. Latchmansingh, the two leaders who came together to form the PNC, had strong ties with labour. Among that party’s general secretaries was the President of the Postal and Telecommunications Workers Union, Andrew Jackson. Evidently, the trade union movement had established links and working relations with the PNC. Where the party at this congress is focusing on the legacy of Burnham it may also be opportune to revisit this relationship, more particularly in light of grumblings coming from trade union quarters that the APNU+AFC Government is perceived as anti-labour and value workers only as vote casters and cheerleaders.

It is the PNC’s legacy, the labour movement would be advised, that had seen the longest serving Minister of Labour, Winslow Carrington, who came out of the trade union and served as President of the then Transport and General Workers Union.  It was an appointment that was influenced by the recommendation of the Guyana Trades Union Congress. During Carrington’s tenure, the National Insurance Scheme was established, a Labour Code Commission was put in place from which labour laws ensued, such as the Trade Union Recognition Act, Occupation Safety and Health Act, and Termination Employment and Severance Pay Act.

Where the HDI is the focus of development in the Green Economy as against the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it cannot be over-emphasised the human factor and relationships in this regard. Unemployment and poverty are hindrances to human development and these have to be addressed in systematic manners through programmes that have the involvement of stakeholders. And here it could be to the administration’s interest to examine ways of creating employment and economic opportunities with the trade union.

As President Granger alluded to the “egalitarian” philosophy of Burnham in the shaping of a national programme, it is timely to recall during the PNC administrations there was a State Planning Commission and the trade union held the vice-chairmanship and  served as members of various sub-committees. Equally, it may be opportune to elevate State Planning from being a unit, which it was reduced to by the Bharrat Jagdeo government, and return it to a commission where national planning could be treated with deserving seriousness.

The downplaying of State Planning also resulted in the downplaying of a National Development Plan and Strategy. And though the Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, recently accused the APNU+AFC administration of not having a developmental plan, the nation also did not see one during the life of his government. In a Green Economy development has to have a human face and sustainable development also requires exploitation of indigenous resources in a safe manner within the confines of environmental and other laws, for the benefit of the people.

Consequently, the nation should see a strategy put in place to address the World Bank’s figure of 21 percent national unemployment, as well as the Caribbean Development Bank’s figure of 40 percent unemployment among the youth, a figure that only addressed persons between age 16-24, when almost three-quarter of the nation’s population is 40 years and younger, it says that the unemployment figure among this demographic may be actually higher.

Ways have to be found to ensure persons engage in productive endeavours and the private sector in a tri-sectoral economy cannot do what governments are designed to do, which include creating the enabling environment for employment and economic opportunities.

The current Community Development Councils (CDCs) which were implemented under the PPP/C government has the potential to evolve into strong community economic networking. In pursuing the Green Economy, the CDC’s programme has an element that addresses the environment. Should such activity be fed into the national environmental programme it can create a shift in the manner in which citizens, throughout the country, treat with health and the environment.

There is also the issue of wages/salaries that today cannot keep abreast with inflation and the cost of living. And whereas the government may argue it cannot pay wages/salaries at market rates, it may be opportune to look at cushioning the disparity with social programmes and incentives.  For the retired who have to face the same market prices a programme has to be developed to cushion the effect for this demographic, to ensure that their post-working life is one of dignity which is also an aspect of human development.

The Green Economy can be realised, given that Guyana has what is required to make it happen, what is needed is the political will, commitment, and treating each stakeholder in society as an equal and valued component.