DEVELOPMENT FOR WHOM?

Mar 25, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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We hear a great deal about development in our country. When persons come from outside of Guyana and speak about development they often make reference to some physical structure that has been established.
They may, for example, look at our roads, and recognizing the dismal state that they were in twenty years ago, speak about development since then. They may pass by the National Stadium and recalling the many promises that the Guyanese people had in the past about constructing something like this, say that Guyana has development.
They may then go on a tour and notice some of the other structures that have been established by the government, including the Berbice River Bridge, the Berbice Tain campus, the Convention Center, the new private banks that have sprouted up, the Caricom Headquarters and the new hospitals in New Amsterdam, Linden and Mahaicony. All of these they claim are signs of development.
As the foreigner spends time in Guyana, he/she notices that most persons, not all, have in some way improved their residences. He/she also notices that some real lovely houses have been constructed and that many persons who never owned a home now do so. The visitor sees this as even more development because it is viewed as the benefits directly trickling down to the people.
An important measure of development is therefore the material improvement in the lives of the people.
For the capitalist, development is assessed in terms of growth ,and the fact that the growth trickles down to the people. So development in capitalist societies is often assessed in the theory that a rising tide raises all ships, meaning that while growth may be unevenly distributed, the mere existence of growth ensures that everyone benefits.
This has been a most questionable proposition and has been more so considering some of the major contracts that were signed under the Bharrat Jagdeo administration.
Take for example the investment at Sanata. A great deal of tax revenues were foregone in order to promote the investments at this location. The public was told that when completed some 1200 jobs would have been created.
So have twelve hundred new jobs been created at that location? The public needs to be told.
The government is spending billions of dollars to bring a fibre optic cable from Brazil, when there is capacity within one of the local networks to provide the same bandwidth services that the cable is going to provide. So is this development or is this unnecessary expenditure?
And what will be the trickle down effects. Are good paying jobs going to be created for the thousands of school leavers who are struggling to find employment? Is it development when the government is going to invest billions into a project like this to serve just whose interests nobody knows? Do we have the skills to utilize these investments? If not, is this development?
Walter Rodney who was assassinated by the PNC regime made the point that development must be seen also as personal development, including the acquisition of skills by the people.
Development is not about handouts. While the one laptop per family programme certainly allows families who could not afford to own a computer to do so, is it not better to teach someone to fish rather than to give them a fish?
Is it not development to allow persons to be able to purchase their own laptops rather than receive a handout of a laptop? Could those billions that have been poured into buying these laptops not have been put into a productive enterprise that would have allowed persons to earn and therefore eventually buy their own computers?
And what about the Berbice River Bridge, is that development? Is it a good investment that we have a bridge but most persons cannot afford to cross that bridge more than one time per month? Is it development when the tolls are outside of the reach of the average driver?
The only persons benefiting from this bridge are the handpicked investors who will eventually smile all the way to the bank.
They may not be rolling in the big bucks now, but when the Deep Water Harbour is completed, what is going to happen is that all the local ships transporting goods to and from the harbour will have to pay toll at the bridge, and this is when the big bucks will roll for the investors.
The more you look at some of these projects which are touted as being for the development of Guyana, the more you will begin to see in the background, the smiling faces of the local oligarchy, who are the ones really benefiting from the investments. The more you examine these development projects which the private media is being accused of trying to railroad, the more it becomes clear that most of them will benefit a small band of stinking-rich individuals and not the masses of Guyana.
Is hydroelectricity going to benefit Guyanese when the rates will only be reduced by 20-40%? We can achieve this reduction by simply reducing line losses. So who benefits from hydro? Not the small man!
When you look at the proposed Marriott Hotel, it is observed that there are going to be preferred investors who will have the first claim on resources should the entity go broke. No such guarantee for taxpayers. So who benefits?
When you look at the one laptop project, you will see who is benefiting locally. Friends and cronies!
When you look at the hydroelectric project you already know who became wealthy by simply selling the rights to the project.
When you look at the extension of the airport project, you will be surprised to know the real reason for that project. And the beat goes on.
Is that development?

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