How foolish can people get?

Feb 12, 2013 Editorial

The halcyon days of local engineering seem to have passed. There was a time when Guyanese could have fashioned almost anything. They were the people who used their ingenuity to keep the sugar industry running to the extent that they were in demand by other sugar producing countries.
The structures to safeguard the coastal areas were largely fashioned by Guyanese engineers. They too constructed the sluices that regulated water in the Lamaha Conservancy; kept the aging turbines at the now Guyana Power and Light running and they came up with solutions to construction problems that arose from time to time.
They built the Demerara Harbor Bridge and the little known Denham Suspension Bridge, also known as the Garraway Stream Bridge that spans the Potaro. For the records, this is the only suspension bridge in the region. Of course there was one civil engineer and general contractor, John Aldi, who fashioned the bridge but the labour and the other technical aspects were done by Guyanese. It remains a masterpiece to this day, unseen by most of Guyana but holds the record as the first suspension bridge in South America.
The government now says that such skills are about non-existent or if they are around, are invisible. Qualified people did leave Guyana for one reason or the other. Some left because of the politics of Forbes Burnham, some because they thought that they were not being properly remunerated by the current administration, and some because they disliked the current administration.
Being in place for twenty years one would have expected the administration would have focused on replacing those engineers and other skilled people. There should have been a focus on technical education. Instead, the government is content to sit back and merely report that Guyana has lost its skilled capability.
During the 1950s Guyana and Singapore were identical in the level of poverty. Their rural folk lived in thatched houses and transportation was limited to the few decrepit trucks and buses that were no more than wooden frames. They both had ethnic differences but one handled the situation better than the other. Another difference was that Guyana had natural resources while Singapore had none.
Today Singapore is a first world nation and Guyana continues to languish among the poverty stricken nations of the world. And the reason is simple. Indeed, the country began a serious focus on education, but more, it recognized the need for skills. When Singapore pursued development it approached international companies.
It offered them the right to enter the country to undertake projects. There were specific timeframes and conditions. One of the conditions for all technologically inclined companies was that for every two foreigner there should be one Singaporean in the management stream. It was the same with the labour force.
In this way Singapore developed the skills it needed. More than five decades have passed; the Guyana Government has been in place for two decades but it has learnt nothing from the experiences of those who succeeded in changing their economic fortunes.
A Chinese construction company, Shanghai Construction Group, is in Guyana to construct the Marriott hotel. Head of the Privatisation Unit, Winston Brassington, explains the non-employment of Guyanese by way of claiming that the Chinese contractor so dictated. The excuse is that there is the need to quicken the pace of construction (Guyanese would hamper the progress); Guyanese are not skilled enough (but they have constructed almost every edifice in the country) and they cost the project to be more expensive.
This is perhaps the greatest bit of poppycock in the history of Guyana. What is worse is that Brassington actually boasts that the project is US$9 million cheaper. He may wish to be reminded that it would cost much more than US$9 million to train some of the skilled people. Guyana has saved nothing. If the Marriott is a private project, then the savings could be going to the investors, one of whom must be Brassington.
To prevent Guyanese from working in an area where they could learn a lot is a disgrace. But we have the gumption to tell the people that we simply do not have the skills.

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