Public trust in Guyana

Dec 16, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Guyanese people have suffered since Guyana’s history has been recorded. From the invasion of this land by Europeans, slavery, indentured labour and ultra invasive governments bent on controlling and restricting by means of fear, propaganda and corruption, we have endured much.
Here’s a test, simply stop and casually ask any Guyanese on the street if they trust the government and you are likely to get either of two responses. First the person will say no, flat out, or secondly they will say yes, but the government is this and the government does that so I trust them but…The writing is on the wall and has been on the wall since decades ago.
Our experience with government corruption, government sponsored inaction, terrorism, violence, ethnic fear mongering, government relationship with the criminal underworld, the farce that is parliament, etc. have caused government supporters and non-supporters to not only distrust, but also resent governments that have exercised power over this land. Life in Guyana would be so much better, people would put greater trust in each other and the government and many Guyanese would feel a greater sense of belonging if our governments understood and acted like a facilitator of services, goods and development, rather than the beginning and end of these practices.
Guyanese have realised that governments in this country are more concerned about controlling the society, perhaps not through obvious socialist mechanisms as in years gone by, but through procedural, process, appointments and other requirements which give the government the last and or most significant word.
Our experiences have also taught us that our governments are clearly out to create wealth for government officials and their primary support bases. This is a fact that no spin can recreate and by virtue of these practices our governments have been directly and in-directly responsible for continued practices and real perceptions of marginalisation, ethnicization, discrimination, under-development, in-security, unnecessarily high rates of under-employment and the list goes on.
It’s like we have put so much effort into riding a stationary bike when we need to get off the bike and run in order t make sustainable and substantial progress.
Public trust in our governments requires fundamental structural changes in governance, institutions, significant paradigm shifts in the mindsets that coordinate and manage these institutions and agencies, changes in the ways local political parties operate, re-thinking how government relates to the populace and the organs that represent the views of the populace (e.g. civil society, the private sector, academia and the private print and electronic media) at large and engage them in policy-making and other developmental processes.
It is no secret that governments of the past and present have had serious public issues and lambasted agencies and persons in these sectors as opposed to constructive dialogue to enhance the functioning of these sectors with the understanding that they like the government has their work to do on behalf of the Guyanese people.
Practices like this as simple and obvious as they may seem go a long way in terms of building public trust and strengthening government institutions, but for many reasons they are few and far between unless development funding is involved.
Guyana is still largely an export and donor funded based-economy with a population of roughly 750,000 persons, therefore, Western models of development that promote social growth and change through material acquisition and greater access to financing will not produce the sorts for nation building and social development progress they pretend to promote.
Development is more than a home, a car, and bank loan, sustainable and meaningful development must involve changing attitudes, mindsets and cultural legacies that keep us less competitive, under achieving and critically distrustful of each other and over government.
Rawle Small

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Public trust in Guyana

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