GOVERNMENT’S accelerated, aggressive, ambitious development agenda that Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh outlined in the 2021 National Budget lays out a galaxy of projects and programmes for Guyana’s miraculous rise to prosperity, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) projected to rise 20.9 per cent this year alone, to add to the 43.5 per cent GDP growth last year, making Guyana the fastest growing economy in the world, and a glittering star on the international stage, an outstanding nation of the 21st century global village. What a way for the nation to launch into the third decade of this century, well-positioned to realise the dreams, aspirations, immense potential and goals and real possibilities of the Guyanese nation. This new era ushers in a pressing mandate for a culture of professional management, efficient maintenance, and sustainable marketing of this new society to become embedded in the State operation.

For so long under this warm tropical sun, with the Atlantic Ocean nagging at the shoreline and towering six feet above the capital city of Georgetown, with the wild virgin forest dominating the landscape and raging rivers flowing through the land watering a dynamic organic ecosystem of fresh nature thriving with gallant Guyana laid back ease, this great land waited patiently for its time to scale the summit of its dreams.
Today, the nation is conquering the intimidating Atlantic, tapping oil and gas from its belly, those reservoirs of riches that lay buried for so long. Today, the government is establishing a series of hydroelectric projects to harness the land’s breathtaking ancient waterfalls into clean energy, and setting up solar farms across the country to harness the bright hot Southern sun into sustainable electricity for remote communities, and building the gas-to-shore pipeline to bring gas to communities and homes, from the offshore oil reservoirs in the Atlantic, plus entrenching an updated Local Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) to maintain the lush sustainability of the natural environment.

It all seems like such a natural, inevitable transition, this ease with which the Guyanese nation is suddenly leaping from being one of the poorest countries in the Americas 30 years ago, ranking with Haiti at the bottom of the barrel, and from Least Developed status just a decade ago, to Middle Developed status five years ago when it rose under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Government before the Coalition regime derailed everything, to now becoming the fastest growing economy in the world. It feels surreal, fantastic, and like a dream, this miraculous turn around in national fortunes. Guyanese on the home front, and across the world in the Diaspora, may take a while to get used to the new frontier opening up, although President Ali and ministers appear to be brimming with excitement, optimism, and great ideas and big visions and massive goals, because they see what is happening for the country. They feel the pulse of this new era. They understand the dynamic opportunities that have opened up with such incredible speed.

There is, however, a note of caution that the nation needs to take to heart. It is all well and good to build new shiny things, to establish ground-breaking projects and to install new pillars across the landscape. It is an altogether different ball game to maintain, manage, and market the new society so that it does not suffer from neglect, disrepair, breakdowns, and inefficiency. Guyana is familiar in its history with the impact of neglecting and mismanaging glitzy projects, especially under the regime of the People’s National Congress over nearly three decades at the helm of the State. Even as recently as 2020, disrepair and poor execution affected the bitumen plant and even the crosswalk elevators that the Coalition built along roadways, with most malfunctioning or badly maintained. Minister of Public Works, Juan Edgehill, had to implement urgent emergency remedial action to get the bitumen plant in efficient operation, and to repair the crosswalk elevators.

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPPC) Government proved, over the years, to be better managers of national assets than the Coalition, and so one can be assured that this government would take good care of new projects rolling out. However, many of these macro State projects would be left in the hands of middle managers to manage, maintain, and market for sustainable development and growth, and even preservation. These projects would have to incorporate a strong business model in each to ensure they do not become a drain on the State coffers, that they could all eventually sustain their own operation. For that, each project needs a good branding and marketing strategy to build the ongoing case for their continual necessity.
To its great credit, the President Ali Government recognises the deep value of an educated, trained and well-equipped human resource base for the country, to sustain its new development height. It would be useless for this era of prosperity to lift the country way up, only for it to fall or descend over time because of poor middle management. This is why the government is implementing such a comprehensive education agenda, with 20,000 scholarships for training a wide swath of citizens in technical, vocational, professional and academic skills, for the country to have at its ready disposal a cadre of skilled people from which to cull talented, gifted managers and leaders for these world class projects.

It is therefore imperative that the State inculcate and embed a comprehensive consciousness across every strata of its operation, for professional management, self-sufficient sustainability, and efficient maintenance to be a natural pillar of each project, programme and plan. It is the State’s job to make sure that this new era of Guyana’s glitzy rise be maintained, well managed, and marketed for sustainable, continual development and growth. Thus, it is not the end of the line that new development is happening; rather, it is the start of a new era and a new society and a new mandate to maintain, manage, and sustain the new Guyana.