LAST week we reported former Executive Director of Conservation International Guyana, Dr. David Singh, as saying that the Green State Development Strategy (GSDS): Vision 2040 should have some “legal standing” to ensure its longevity.

His view was premised on the fact that such an important policy initiative should not be subject to narrow political manoeuvrings. In fact, he stated: “A strategy that lasts only for a political cycle is far too short-sighted to actually get the commitment of State agencies.”
He related that State agencies are mandated to commit to long-term plans which guide their work, usually over increments of five or ten years. Then on Friday, the Ministry of the Presidency released a video of President David Granger speaking about his vision for the education sector in Guyana. Among the things he stated is that he would like every Guyanese to be exposed to education, at the minimum, at the secondary level and has certainly made tremendous strides in ensuring this. If one were to objectively listen to the President’s message, it is difficult not to support his vision. And here it is where sound policy initiatives such as were espoused by the president perhaps ought to be underpinned by legislative protection to ensure their longevity.

Education is key to the development of any nation that aspires to maximum socio-economic development. In fact, reading about the rise of the great industrial nations, it will be found that their ascendancy to global power have been premised on an available quality educated workforce, that have been able to produce eminent personalities in the arts, sciences of all categories and varied technologies that have made for sustained growth and development.

It is because of this sustained level of educated citizens that are continuously facilitated and fed by a flow that commences from the early classrooms, the intermediary stage, and on to the tertiary level learning centres such as universities and colleges, that these nations have been able to rise to the level of global pre-eminence, holding sway for decades.
This explains why these nations have been able to continue to influence international affairs, particularly trade and economics. And even for those that have not attained that level, their renowned economic and financial structures have enabled them to become financial centres of the world, apart from providing domestic stability that ensures a comfortable life for its citizens. This is testimony to their level of quality education. Singapore is a beacon of example of what quality education has done for its country and citizens, giving it the status of a first-world country.

This fact of quality education and its pivotal importance in the life of every nation was not lost on President David Granger and his coalition when they took over the reins of government. That they inherited a system that had been broken, inclusive of daily school dropouts, poor attendance, inadequate classrooms, and a lack of modern teaching methodologies, was without doubt contributory factors to these serious negatives which could only make for adverse social repercussions.

It is no coincidence, therefore, that the education sector has, since the inception of the President Granger-administration, continued to get the largest slice of budgetary allocation – with $33.8B for 2015; $43B for 2017; $49.1B for 2018; and $52.2B for 2019. These sums have been utilised for more primary, nursery and secondary schools, particularly with the aim of contributing to friendlier classroom environment, and a better quality of educators for an improved delivery of teaching content, especially for Mathematics, given what would have been the worrying trend of low scores for both NGSA and CSEC examinations.

One, therefore, would agree that there are some areas of national development that ought not to be subject to Harold Lasswell’s definition of politics, which is ‘Who gets what, when and how.’ Key among those areas are those having to do with projects associated with education, infrastructure and cheap and reliable energy. The rule of thumb should be that once a project is critical to a nation’s long-term development and it follows the law, it should not be subject to the caprices of an incoming government.

And this is where the courts can have a key role to play in terms of providing the necessary guidance and protection against this vagary. Here in Guyana, the time is ripe for there to be legislative protection for national projects, given that one cannot effectively advance the long-term development of a nation while being restricted by five-year electoral cycles. This consideration intensely comes to bear in relation to developing countries such as Guyana.
Scholarship has established that policy uncertainty and reduced investments occur close to electoral cycles (Canes-Wrone and Park 2012; Julio and Yook 2012). Added to this is the sister risk: good, productive and efficient national advancement programmes that are part of a sitting government’s vision, being cancelled while on a trajectory to benefit the country and people.

Regrettably, upon the ascension to office of a new government, these programmes could be shelved in one fell swoop. For example, why should the people be denied cheap and reliable energy that is enshrined in a government project, which is part of the vision of a government that goes beyond the electoral cycle? In the case of Guyana, the current administration is rapidly moving towards the implementation of a ‘Green State Development Strategy (GSDS), which is primarily about renewable energy. This vision, once realised, will definitely benefit the nation.

In democratic societies with intense competition rooted in tribal and ethnic considerations, it is difficult to see the level of political maturity that is required to ensure the national interest is put first. Be that as it may, there are countries that have found success by enshrining development goals in their constitutions. A case in point is Costa Rica, whose constitution stipulates that at least six per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) must be spent on education; another is that of Bhutan, which states:

“The Government shall ensure that, in order to conserve the country’s natural resources and to prevent degradation of the ecosystem, a minimum of 60 per cent of Bhutan’s total land shall be maintained under forest cover for all time.” Those nations at reference stand as model global exemplars for rapid ‘green’ development. And there is a direct correlation between their developmental gains and the rule of law. It, therefore, follows that national goals connected to cheap and reliable energy should be aided by the rule of law.

Put another way, it means that in the case of Guyana, projects that are critical to national development should not be subject to the rigours of Guyanese politics. There are several caveats in this regard, in that those projects should meet a minimum fiduciary standard to receive judicial protection; and there should be clearly defined guidelines for what constitutes national projects that are crucial to national development.

The word ‘development’ should be banned from the Guyanese lexicon; that is, if successive governments come and go, and the party outside of power waits anxiously to chop a plan that teems with incontrovertible benefits for the nation’s long-term growth. But one would rather suspect that in the zero-sum game of politics, this is high idealism.