FOUR THINGS THAT HOLD BACK DEVELOPMENT

Nov 14, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Any government can have the right policies, make the right choices, do the correct things, and yet oversee a country that remains underdeveloped.
The right policies, the right choices and the correct approach will all be undermined, unless there is the right attitude by the people.
The blight of many a colonial society is that they measure development in terms of modernization. But while modernization in infrastructure is rising, standards are falling and the attitude towards development fall behind.
Guyana is no exception to this problem. Guyana needs to liberate from certain practices which existed under colonialism and which still exist today.
Interestingly, when Guyanese are overseas they are quick to dissociate themselves from some of these negative attitudes. They don’t, for example, take it for granted that they can turn up late for work or absent themselves regularly from the job.
They know that if they try that they will be on the breadline. So snow or sunshine, they are out early and at their jobs on time, and they stay home only when they are genuinely sick.
So what are these attitudes that regardless of what is done by the government will undermine national development?
We can list four such attitudes. The first is squatting. The second is illegal vending. The third is praedial larceny. And the fourth is littering.
You can have the best government, unless these things are fixed, unless they are seen as being detrimental to human progress, unless politicians stop defending these illegalities and stop making excuses for the perpetrators of these acts, Guyana will go nowhere.
You are driving along the coast and there is a vehicle in front of you. Suddenly, a small white plastic bag comes flying out of the window of the car in front of you.
You presume it blew out by accident, until a few minutes later when another one is thrown out and then another one and yet another one. You cannot develop a country when so many people do not care about the environment in which they live.
Guyana is an agricultural society. Agriculture is susceptible to climatic conditions, but the biggest bugbear to the viability of agriculture is praedial larceny. This is a practice that has driven many a farmer off the land, and which still affects many farming communities.
There are individuals who just live to steal what other persons produce.
They steal your cash crops, they steal your livestock and they rustle your cattle. Unless this practice is stamped out, agriculture will never fulfill its potential and Guyana, by extension, will never become the bread basket of the Caribbean.
It is said that the Trinidadians are coming here to do large scale farming. They had better walk with many watchmen, because what they sow they may not reap.
The next major impediment to development is the practice of squatting. This problem has become so rampant and uncontrolled that it now poses a serious obstacle to national development. Persons who claim to be poor simply go and occupy a piece of land.
These same impoverished people within a few years put up a fancy house. And when the authorities try to move them they claim that they have rights.
When it is shown to them that they have no rights to be on the land, they then contend that they have no place to go. The rich also squat, but they have the connections to make things right, and the poor use this to justify their own unlawful actions.
This is the same tune that is sung by vendors, and just like squatters, they seem to feel that it is right for them to sell in front of private businesses. Georgetown is in a mess, it is unsightly and it is chaotic, and in no small measure because of illegal vending.
The vendors may keep their surroundings clean, but they generate a great deal of garbage and have destroyed the ambience of the city.
Those who are advising them that vending is the route to empowerment cannot be serious, because there are not many cases of vendors who have risen from rags to riches.
Most of the vendors eke out a living and many refuse to accept that the time and resources that they have invested in their makeshift businesses could have been put to better use.
Until such time that Guyanese emancipate themselves from these ills – littering, praedial larceny, squatting and vending – Guyana will go nowhere.
The government and the opposition can have the best of plans and perfect policies, but these will not amount to much until there is a new attitude towards development.

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