THIS is the primary consideration of successive PPP/C administrations and Heads-of-state; and when this blend of the People’s Progressive Party and members of civil society (PPP/C) was catapulted with mass support into government in 1992 – the devastation, the moral and infrastructural decline, and the feelings of hopelessness and apathy in the nation was so all-encompassing that only the most optimistic thought that Guyana could once again be extricated from the morass of destruction and economic wasteland into which it had sunk.But the administration persevered and prevailed, against all the odds, in less than two decades – one to extricate the country from the colossal debt burden while prioritizing the areas of need that necessitated urgent intervention – a daunting task, because every sector was in total collapse; then, after extrication from that overwhelming burden of debt, to streamline the developmental imperatives while battling against external forces and internal destructive elements that constantly set the country on “slow fiah” or “mo fiah”.
And as every PPP/C speaker has acknowledged during their recent elections campaign rallies, His Excellency Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, incumbent President of the Republic of Guyana, will be recorded in the history of this land as the person who has been responsible for Guyana’s restructured economic dynamics whereby this nation recorded economic growth, even as first-world countries were in economic decline.
His stewardship of this nation is the trust of the patriarchal and matriarchal Jagans, who were forced to concede to their own mortality, but who were determined that their decades of struggle for this nation’s welfare should not be lost in anyone’s greed nor self-aggrandizement; so they hand-picked someone they were convinced would lead this country on the developmental trajectory that they had envisioned for Guyana and their beloved Guyanese peoples.
But even more, they chose someone who had the will and the heart to meld Guyanese into a cohesive nation, and to assure all Guyanese peoples that they belong, with equal rights, to a country that is their real motherland, even as they celebrate and pay homage to the lands and cultures of their ancestors.
Today both of these primary dreams of Dr. Cheddi Jagan are being realized as Guyanese from all walks of life and all races are bonding together to ensure that Guyana continues on its progressive path to prosperity.
Other countries have taken notice of Guyana’s positive growth trends in the various sectors and have joined the Guyana train to mobilize and enhance their own developmental imperatives.
The visionary leadership that Guyana’s President Jagdeo indisputably has demonstrated nationally, regionally, and internationally has catalysed this country out of obscurity and abject poverty and into the realm of recognizable policy-makers and a middle income status, which is no mean feat for a developing nation that, less than two decades ago, was anathema to the region, and despised internationally for the decadence of its leadership and the consequential appalling poverty of the nation.
Today Guyana, while still struggling, is ranked among one of the more developed third-world nations, mainly thanks to the astute economic management and massive investments in the social and financial sectors in the country.
Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo is among five world leaders who have been recognized as “Pillars of Transition to a 21st Century Green Economy”.

President Jagdeo, along with the president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed; Afghanistan’s Director General of the National Environmental Protection Agency, Prince Mostapha Zaher; Chinese actress and popular green life-style guru, Zhou Xun; Japanese earth scientist, Dr Taro Takahashi; and American venture capitalist, green energy entrepreneur and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Vinod Khosla were conferred with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEDP) 2010 Champions of the Earth award, the United Nations’ highest award for environmental leadership.
President Jagdeo previously was named by Time magazine as ‘Champion of the Environment’ and is regarded as a global leader in environmental issues, which reported, inter alia:
“As the president of a country with 40 million acres of untouched rainforest, Jagdeo has been working on inviting donors and investors to pay for the protection of the forests through the sale of carbon credits, or investments in eco-tourism and pharmaceutical discoveries. With the money he expects to generate from this trade, President Jagdeo plans to improve the country’s coastal infrastructure to protect it from the potential rise in sea levels.”
According to Chairman of the Private Sector Commission, Mr. Ramesh Dookhoo, speaking at the Ministry of Housing’s Building Expo 2010, the construction and engineering sectors grew by 1.5 percent in 2009 and contributed 11 percent of GDP, saying that in 2008 there was “robust growth” of 8.5 percent. He stated that the building boom has been partly fuelled by public works and infrastructural projects, and has also been driven by tremendous growth in the housing sector. From 1994 to 2010, said Dookhoo, in excess of 80,000 house lots have been distributed and construction has been completed on an approximate 75 percent of these lots. Quoting data from the last census, which indicates that home ownership has increased by 19.6 percent from the previous census, which had been taken pre-1991, Dookhoo contends that this is a stellar achievement in a small economy like Guyana’s. Since then this sector has grown by leaps and bounds, and will continue its momentum until, as Housing Minister Irfaan Ali said, all Guyanese are sheltered under their own roof.
The Private Sector official had stated, also, that the housing sector has been enhanced by joint initiatives between Government and the Private Sector, with commercial banks offering low-cost mortgages to potential homeowners, which he says has resulted in a further boost to many Guyanese owning their own homes, which has positively stimulated the construction market.
Fostering friendly alliances, partnerships and joint ventures with the nation’s private sector and neighbouring states is another PPP/C success story.
An edition of the Chronicle carried a front page picture of Buxtonians from the Diaspora celebrating their Freedom Day with their President, whom many have come to realize really cares about all the people of this country without divides – a President who is prepared to listen to the concerns of his people and address those concerns, once the petitions are reasonable and doable.
Because these Buxtonians in the diaspora have been removed from the influences of their despotic leaders and have experienced a proactive and productive culture, their perceptions are not so easily swayed anymore because they can now think for themselves, and their reason and intellect allows them latitude to make analytical observations based on facts and their own judgment. They know that, in that distant land where they reside, a Guyanese is a Guyanese irrespective of race, and that the profiling of their President at home should not have to do with race, but with achievements and attitudes.
The heart-warming welcome accorded President Jagdeo by Buxtonians at the Buxton Community High School, which was orchestrated by Buxtonian leaders Mboya Wood and Odinga Lumumba, was a signal ice-breaker in a less than cordial relationship that has previously existed, between a section of that community and Guyana’s Head-of-State and Government.
However, largely due to the intervention of two overseas-based Buxtonians, Mr. Wood and Ms Lorna Campbell, who had initiated the commemorative activities to celebrate the 170th anniversary of the purchase of Buxton in 1840 by 141 freed slaves, what was described as a “long-overdue” engagement between the President and residents of Buxton/Friendship, took place with great cordiality. This picture is being replicated throughout the length and breadth of Guyana as Guyanese, in the words of Muslim cleric Warren Barlow, are once again sharing one space with brotherliness and good neighbourliness and refusing to be drawn into the politics of race-hate anymore.
This has come at a cost to many brave Afro-Guyanese leaders, but as Roger Luncheon said at the PPP/C Kitty rally, “…this nonsense must stop” because “we belong”.
Once a Guyanese of African ancestry is associated with the government, even technocrats performing a function with a prescribed mandate, they become a sitting target for the opposition collective, including the media corps affiliated to the various opposition parties, and their attacks do not need to be based on the truth. Indeed, most often they are not.
And no matter how many times their lies and deceptions have been exposed, they continue unabated, with their divisive propaganda meant to keep the Guyanese peoples divided along racial and religious lines.
Democratic principles are based on consolidation of public freedoms and human rights, and integral to those rights is free speech, or freedom of expression and association, and this is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Chapultepec Declaration, which was instituted by the Inter-American Press Association in 1994 and adopted by the Hemisphere Conference on Free Speech in Mexico on 11th March 1994, endorses this and was signed on to by the Guyanese Head of State.
However, no right is absolute because of the correlating imperative of responsibility; and while the government of a nation state has to bow to the principles of human rights, it also has to ensure that those rights are allowed under the guiding principles of responsible dissemination of information; and to guard against exploitation of those rights by persons and institutions with agendas inimical to the national good and cohesion within the society.
Media houses should not be allowed to breach those principles, because their mandate is only to disseminate information to the public with fairness, impartiality, and accuracy which, sadly, is far from the case in Guyana. And while it is Heads-of-States who sign on to treaties, concomitant within the structure of the formulation is the expectation that all relevant parties would adhere to the basic enshrined principles.
The Chapultupec Declaration states in part “The credibility of the press is linked to its commitment to truth, to the pursuit of accuracy, fairness and objectivity, and to the clear distinction between news and advertising. The attainment of these goals and the respect for ethical and professional values may not be imposed. These are the exclusive responsibility of journalists and the media.”
Private media houses in Guyana, however, while demanding all the enshrined rights of the Declaration, conveniently and dishonestly ignore and dismiss the foregoing determinants to ethical journalism, with the most creative distortions of truth a prevalent feature of ostensible news items.
The President has always said that he is willing to work with anyone who has a positive outlook.   However, the destructive elements are bent on taking this country backwards, to when Guyanese used all their energy and resources to fight against each other instead of joining efforts to build a nation that can provide a good – even a brilliant future for themselves and their children.
When one remembers Guyana’s past – and the role some members of the media played in catalyzing the intermittent episodes of violence in this country, then the President and his advisor, Gail Teixeira are correct to warn against such irresponsible rhetoric; because of the potential hate speeches have to catapult murderous pogroms in a country – as it did in Rwanda.