GUYANESE wake up these days with a spectacular feeling of gratitude and goodwill and glorious relief when they see their nation leaping ahead with extraordinary projects being rolled out, almost with dizzying speed. Housing the nation ranks at the top of this country’s peaceful progress and prosperity, and with government’s historic injection of $14 billion to generate 50,000 housing units for Guyanese between now and 2025, citizens digest the news regaling the media landscape, with glee and much anticipation of a Guyana that finally makes its mark on the world stage as a highly developed society. What a beautiful day to be a Guyanese. Everywhere across the length and breadth of this land, people feel the pulse of things happening, of an acceleration of the standard of living of each person, of the promise and potential of Guyana delivered at their doorstep. Such a meteoric rise in national fortunes must be experienced at every level of the society.

This is what national development is all about: the euphoric deliverance of the expectations of the citizenry, when a government that the people elected not only delivers on its promises, but goes way above and beyond national expectations. That multibillion-dollar housing industry injection from the state is a big lifeblood to the country, with a range of jobs and economic activities flowing from it. Citizens all across the country will feel the ripple effects of the construction boom that is unfolding. Yet, there are deeper considerations to be conscious of as to how this country leverages these new socioeconomic stimulus rollouts and state investments and sudden flood of financial resources into the society. It used to be that quite a few companies and contractors would cream off significant profits from public projects that they are awarded contracts for, and proceed to bank their windfall in overseas bank accounts, with little pumping back of capital into the local economy.

These, however, are different times, and therefore the country would do well to provide incentives for local private sector tycoons who gather financial resources after winning state contracts, to re-invest in local communities. Villages and towns across this nation need an inflow of public projects, like, for example, the swimming pool and aqua recreation club in Canje, Berbice. Many of the major private sector investments traditionally flowed to Georgetown, with Regent, Robb, Camp and Water Streets commanding particular attractiveness to new private investors. These days, massive private projects are going up on the East Coast and East Bank of Demerara, in outlying areas of the city, and also the environs of the international airports at Timehri and Ogle are starting to become major commercial hubs, with big projects in the works.

Government is flooding serious financial resources into the country, and it is fruitful to ensure that the resources do not sit in bank accounts as savings, or be sent overseas for what might be perceived as more secure ground. In other words, as the Guyanese landscape undergoes tremendous transformation from the state, generating a magnificent development agenda, there needs to be a simultaneous engineering of a deliberate atmosphere of confidence, and of a long-term outlook, and a commitment from the nouveau riche and those who glean much from the State roll out, to focus their attention on this land, on playing their part to give back to the society and invest in local communities everywhere.

Of course, one of the factors in making big investments is the available market size. For example, one may not want to invest in a small remote village with a few hundred people because the buying power is low. However, in today’s globalised world, local investors could easily set up shop in a remote community, and trade their offerings online to a global marketplace. These sensibilities need to become a national norm, this sense of leveraging local resources into new possibilities.
Developing this country would more and more evolve into an ever expanding sophisticated endeavour, and the powers that be would want to make sure that every facet of the process is always under consideration.

Circulation of money and direct benefits of the windfall from these massive state contracts must be encouraged to stay within the national borders. As much, as wrk Georgetown and the central part of Demerara see big benefits from the development process that is transforming the coastal skyline, Guyanese want to see projects rising up on their street corners, too, in villages everywhere. These are early days of this new era of Guyanese feeling the real rise of their nation. As 50,000 new homes come into operation, the nation would want to start developing self-sufficient socioeconomic corridors, whereby citizens do not have to trudge to the city for their big shopping and entertainment. In these amazing times, the country would do well to assure every citizen that the wealth and well-being and new ways of living the Guyana dream would be easily available to every citizen, on an even, equal footing.