Guyana’s poverty is measurable

Mar 27, 2014 Editorial

The boast that a country is experiencing economic health is often supported by many facts. For one, there is an increase in employment, there is a construction boom and above all, the country makes its mark in many arenas, not least among them, in the sporting arena.
All the countries that walk away with medals and trophy in the field of sports are those countries that are economically sound. Of course, that does not mean that the most economically sound country would secure the most medals but the medal take is a sign that economically the country is out of the economic doldrums.
China is an economic giant and is therefore bound to win medals on the world stage when it comes to sports. The United States, Russia, and even Jamaica are better than Guyana. The football rankings place Guyana down the ladder. Even small island-states like St Kitts must be better than Guyana. For one, it ranks higher on the FIFA ladder and it has an Olympic gold medal as does Grenada in the person of Kirani James.
Why these observations? These days there is not a single Guyanese in the West Indies cricket team. Trinidad has the bulk of the players and it goes without saying that the Trinidad economy is perhaps the best in the region.
Guyana does not have some of the amenities that are now common features in the other countries because the focus is on bread and butter issues, exactly what is the case in the more affluent countries. And this could be understood because our national leaders are not sports enthusiasts and those who were used different considerations to identify those who would carry the national torch.
The current four-day cricket competition is exposing Guyana’s poverty-stricken condition, regardless of what the Finance Minister may proclaim in his budget. On Monday he spoke about the poor performing sections of the economy. He did not mention sports.
The international community places Guyana way down the ladder on many scales. It says that Guyana is poor when it comes to Gross Domestic Product, poor when it comes to infrastructure, poor when it comes to attracting investors and poor when it comes to producing replacements for established leaders.
There are certain factors that may be responsible for Guyana’s poor showing in sports. The absence of facilities would surely be one of those factors. In track and field Jamaica had its synthetic track nearly fifty years ago. Guyana is now trying to construct one. The other smaller Caribbean islands also had theirs years ago.
The Caribbean countries spend serious cash on coaches; Guyana does not, relying instead on bilateral relationships with so-called friendly countries.
The factors that condemn Guyana to perpetual poverty are all related to the human factor. Every international organisation lists Guyana as being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. With such a rating foreign investors would hesitate to come to exploit the resources for the development of everyone.
Such a reputation should have never been cultivated. In any country the merest report of corruption would have been dealt with by the authorities who all have the right to act within their sphere of influence without interference.
In Guyana many people reported acts of corruption but the political directorate took no notice. The result is that corruption spread like a cancer and pretty soon there was no attempt to disguise acts of corruption.
Then there is crime. The reports of crime have been so persistent that people who were determined to stay at home and help in the economic development of the country simply packed their bags. This, too, could have been nipped in the bud if the authorities were serious. The population grows but the number of detention centres remains static. The result is overcrowding.
This then forces the authorities to turn a blind eye to some crimes or to release those accused of committing petty crimes.
Strange as it may seem, allocations for the prisons and for law enforcement do not seem half enough. And many wonder why Guyana continues to be poor.

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Guyana’s poverty is measurable

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