Corruption remains our biggest vice

Jun 16, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Dr. Tarron Khemraj’s erudite letter, “The nature of a donkey-cart economy,” (Kaieteur News, June 15), is incredibly insightful and helpful to readers who have been trying to pin down the modus operandi of the Jagdeo Administration’s economic policies and practices.
I can only hope we are witnessing the beginning of an effervescent educational exchange in the letters columns on our economy, which observers believe is being overly politicized to the extent the Government is the only voice being heard on economic matters.

In my letter, “Voters have to wake up and wise up to make the difference in 2011,” (Kaieteur News, June 15), I noted the lack of a more visible role for the private sector as the engine for Guyana’s economic recovery in the last 16 years, while Dr. Khemraj noted what is needed is ‘a holistic and comprehensive industrial policy framework (which typically involves unconventional measures)’.
However, while Dr. Khemraj said that going into any detail “to outline an industrial policy applicable to Guyana will take an entire research paper”, I would still love for him to at least share with us in the near future a brief outline of what such an industrial policy would entail because what he says may yet prove helpful to the next Government which needs to rely more on input from Guyanese at home and abroad for shaping our economic future.

May I divert a bit at this juncture and say that based on what we experienced during the PNC era, the PPP Government should have come back to power with two advisory councils – economic and national security – comprising Guyanese at home and abroad, to serve as think tanks turning over ideas from which the party and Government could then formulate national policies on the economy and national security.
Hopefully, the next Government would consider doing just that since it is clear that no one party has all the answers to what ails our country.
Getting back to Dr. Khemraj’s advocacy for a holistic industrial policy, I wonder if it is reasonable to incorporate our agriculture base as part of such a policy or if we can have a twinning of agricultural and industrial policies going forward given that we still possess the huge potential to become the breadbasket of the and beyond.

Matter of fact, I have long been fascinated by our agricultural potency and despite misgivings about many aspects of the Forbes Burnham era I think he had the right vision when he launched the ‘Feed, Clothe and House Ourselves by 1976’ campaign.
And although I have equally grave misgivings about many aspects of the Bharrat Jagdeo presidency, I can only hope his Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture (JIA) could work and outlive him.
I do recall several years ago Agriculture Minister Mr. Robert Persaud conducting an agriculture seminar in Florida and then joining President Jagdeo last year in Queens, New York at another agriculture seminar and exhibition, but I have no idea what those seminars achieved for Guyana as far as generating actual investments in agriculture-based projects.
I still believe that based on the amount of money overseas Guyanese remit annually they could play a pivotal role in helping turn Guyana into a bigger agri-based economy via an Agriculture Stock Market established by the private sector with regulatory oversight from Government.
Foreigners can also buy stocks in the market, but while this idea would require a vision and a plan, it would require first and foremost restoring public confidence in Government, which must then create the environment conducive for the public to then put its confidence in the private sector for the benefit of Guyanese and not so he can have bragging rights.

If my memory serves me well, Banks DIH, a leading private sector entity of high repute, once bared a plan back in the mid eighties to establish in Essequibo what could have become the first major agri-based complex in the country, spanning production of vegetables and ground provisions, a starch production plant, canning, packaging, storage and shipping. As a reporter with the then GBC, I was assigned to cover the turning of the sod ceremony and was floored by the outlay of the plan, which was an ambitious diversification for a company that was known primarily for soft drinks and alcoholic beverages.
I left in 1988 and neither heard nor read anything more about it, but considering the success story of this company I still see no reason why its plan cannot benefit from an Agriculture Stock Market.
Where are the Peter D’Aguiars of the New Millennium? Yes, we have Peter Ramsaroop, who also had an equally ambitious agri-related plan, but because of ‘politics’ he never got the Government’s support he needed for his private ventures like Buddy Shivraj got for his private hotel venture, and in Guyana’s agri-based economy, agri-based projects kick hotel projects butt any given day.

I have been told that there are already several small to medium sized agri-based entities, but while these are laudable, the vision I have in mind involves hundreds of billions of dollars, creating multiplied thousands of jobs (including incentives to get overseas Guyanese to return) and generating multiplied trillions in income.
The Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture may or may not cater to this, but unless he changes his mind and seeks a third term (I pray he leaves in 2011) he is a lame duck President who will not be around to see whatever JIA plans he has in mind bear fruit, so we may still need another leader with a more comprehensive vision or fine-tuned plan.
I am stressing the importance of agriculture as the key to our economic fortunes even though I am aware our country is blessed with other natural resources and even as I have taken note of Dr. Khemraj’s call for a holistic industrial policy.
The problem is that no one knows for sure what the quantifiable diagnosis of what our natural resources looks like.

Beside that, we have a Government that has suddenly found that it can make tons of money from avoiding deforestation so that we are likely to see a tamping down of production in our logging industry, or severe restrictions imposed on extracting resources from our vast forested lands.
Perhaps to make up for not having a comprehensive economic plan at the outset of its return to power in 1992, the PPP Government seems to have made making tons of money from avoiding deforestation its new found national economic salvation plan, but putting most of its eggs in this basket is risky and begs for an explanation from Government about what alternative plan it has if donor Governments and organisations don’t pony up the kinds of money the President is hoping for in light of current economic times. In short, what is the President’s Plan B?

Finally, of equal importance in the Government’s bid to get in on big bucks for avoiding deforestation is the issue of systemic corruption in Government.
Foreign donors will want to be assured beyond mere promises that their investments are going towards what they have in mind and so when they turn to Transparency International’s report for 2008 and find that ranks 126th out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index, it does not help Guyana’s cause.
In fact, on one Guyanese blog a few months ago there was an extract of an exchange among MPs in the British Parliament on their Government’s financing of forest saving projects in Third World countries, of which Guyana was mentioned, and the issue of corruption surfaced, so it is clear to us that these industrialized countries are not just going to pour money into huge black holes in Third World nations; they will want some kind of oversight or rigid accountability.
If Government cannot get its act together on its own egregious financial practices, as per the Auditor General’s latest report, how will it convince donors not to make cuts in their money for avoiding deforestation?
Emile Mervin

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