“I was deeply moved by the overflowing spirit of goodwill demonstrated by Guyanese over the Christmas holidays, and particularly through the thoughtfulness shown to the less fortunate in our midst. The numerous acts of kindness are testimony to that wellspring of humanity engraved in every person’s heart and with which we can touch the lives of others.” – Excerpted from His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo’s New Year’s Day address to the nation.

In his New Year’s Day address to the nation, Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo alluded to the conditioning by the higher obligation of citizens to work for the common good.

The President reiterated: “My appeal at this time is for every citizen of this dear land of ours to commit to the common good by leading exemplary lives as honest, hardworking, law-abiding citizens. We may not yet be a rich country, but our station as a nation need not constrain our kindness, our compassion or our solidarity.”

His qualifying “yet” indicates his faith in Guyana’s eventual prosperity.

Referring to some of the catastrophic impacts of the world economic crisis on the region, and in particular our nation, President Jagdeo said that, despite all the negative synergies and what he termed “these formidable obstacles and the below-expected performance in some sectors of the economy, namely sugar and bauxite” our economy registered growth, even while the Government was accelerating its spending on and expanding its services in the social sector.

Through the prudent fiscal management of Guyana’s administration, while the most powerful nation on earth is experiencing its worst recession in decades, along with some of the richest countries in the world, leaving millions without jobs and homes, with many businesses facing bankruptcy and a concurrent plethora of related social and economic ills, Guyana is energetically continuing its housing programme, its health and education improvements, its infrastructural development, its food security drive through the Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture, and a multiplicity of initiatives propelling Guyana’s development paradigm through a holistic approach to national development – an upward path made possible only because of Guyana’s sound macroeconomic fundamentals.

Team Guyana should take a bow, because this is the result of teamwork involving all the various stakeholders who worked untiringly together, as cohesive units nationwide, to implement policy decisions of cabinet and the parliamentary sectoral committees (and the successes of the latter hallmark shared governance in a purist format).

This is the spirit driving national achievement through what the President refers to as “the higher obligation of citizens to work for the common good.”

What we can achieve with absolute cooperation driving endeavour to national achievement is incalculable.

Sadly, it is self-seeking national leaders who derail the momentum of national unity off the tracks each time the unique configuration of Guyanese peoples gathers steam as a united developmental train, and they do this under the guise of caring for the peoples of this nation, while intent on widening and sustaining the divides in the nation, where many stakeholders deliberately work against the common good.

The statistics are the young in our midst who are floundering for a handhold on a stable future, which could only be made possible with a unity of purpose, with Guyanese from every walk of life working toward “the common good”.

These persons leave no stone unturned to politicize every effort of the Jagdeo administration to propel this nation’s upward mobility: Witness our country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), so ably piloted by our President, and the efforts of several persons to embarrass our nation’s President at world fora (and consequently our nation), which is motivated only by unpatriotic protagonists attempting to score cheap political points – nationally and internationally, even if the nation suffers as a consequence.

The glory President Jagdeo is bringing to this nation through lobbying for justice for impoverished and developing nations to benefit from their God-give resources – rainforests, would reflect on each of us as a Guyanese people, and any ensuing financial benefits would positively impact Guyanese communities nationwide. The recognition of our country, which was once only known as the land of Jonestown, as a force to reckon with in the global construct of nations on the issue of climate change, was only made possible by the indefatigable advocacy for the LCDS to benefit small and developing nations by Guyana’s President – and if he wins the Nobel prize it will be Guyana that will be recognized, long after Bharrat Jagdeo is no more.

In his New Year’s Day speech the President outlined his administration’s plans for 2010 to enhance and strengthen, even further, Guyana’s structural, social, and financial mobility.

The Government’s development agenda is a work in progress – the continuum of which has increasingly gained momentum over the relatively short time since the PPP/C Government took a bankrupted economy and a devastated people and began a slow but steady climb toward achieving Peace, Progress, and Prosperity for the Guyanese people.

As we enter into 2010 there is need to reiterate the President’s appeal: “Guyana is our home and the ties that bind citizens to this land will outlive us all.

It is thus our obligation to do all that we can to help our country attain the peace, security and prosperity for which our ancestors and succeeding generations struggled. We have an abiding duty to assume the mantle of responsible citizenship and to play our part in realizing the vision of (a) united, free, prosperous and humane Guyana.”

President Jagdeo said that his Government’s vision of a prosperous and united nation can be realized.

Indeed it can be, but only if all stakeholders work toward the common good through “that wellspring of humanity” that is inherent i
n all of us on a sustained basis, and not just as acts driven by the season of Christmas