David Granger should never let this moment disappear

Apr 12, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is no question in my mind that David Granger is the right man to be President of Guyana. There is no grey area in my analysis that David Granger is an immensely credible leader. There is no doubt in my thinking that David Granger is a committed nationalist. There isn’t any suspicion whatsoever in my heart about Mr. Granger’s integrity. David Granger is a problem for the PPP’s machinations.
It is not easy for the PPP to scandalize him. To the East Indian supporters of the PPP, Granger is not a person they dislike. My own, deep feeling is that although he is a nationalist, he is not a transformational leader. I don’t think he has a blueprint for eradicating the diseased banalities that are deeply embedded in this poor, ethnically, backward country and which hold it back from a modern future. Mr. Granger cannot be blind to the development and modernity he sees in the countries he has been to. Last week he was in Trinidad at UWI. He cannot deny that just one building at UWI in small states like Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad is a thing to behold in comparison to the dilapidation we see all over the place at UG.
In discussing the transformation of Guyana, it is important to note that the economy is not the centre of gravity. Money alone cannot propel a country into the future. I doubt that there is a political theorist who would argue that way. Progress comes to countries based on the kind of social values, cultural mores, philosophical conceptualizations, sociological ways of doing things, social customs, political culture etc. that they embrace.
A country does not become a great nation because money flows like water. The oil-producing nations in the Arab world are indecently rich. One can say their physical infrastructure is post modern. But these are very backward places, in the essentialist way of looking at philosophy.
Mr. Granger is most likely to move off in 2020. In that time he will not secure the enormous sums needed to bring about physical modernization. UG will not even be a fifth rate university by 2020. Money isn’t there to light up the streets of Greater Georgetown much less all the towns and cities across Guyana by 2020.
Public service pay in 2020 will not be anything near what obtains in the big CARICOM states. The Georgetown Public Hospital in 2020 will not achieve the kind of technology that modern medicine operates with. The brutal fact is that the physical transformation of Guyana into a modern land is not going to be achieved under Mr. Granger’s presidency.
The reason is because such finances will not be generated by the time Mr. Granger retires from the presidency.
What Mr. Granger can do is to transform Guyana in the areas that it cries out badly for, and that needs no colossal expenditure. He can start with the complete overhauling of the judicial system. I doubt this system ever worked at least about thirty percent of its capacity since the sixties. Guyana’s judicial system is tragically anti-poor and primitive.
Mr. Granger will be remembered as a hero if by 2020, you can get your land or house back from someone who stole it from you six months after you took them to court. At the moment, it takes about ten or more years.
Mr. Granger should completely overhaul our anachronistic laws. Surely as someone familiar with the sociology of Guyana’s historical evolution, Mr. Granger cannot be happy with the horrible colonial laws that still govern our lives. In which part of the modern, democratic world you jail young men for possession of a drug-smoking utensil.
Our divorce laws go back to 1933 and they are horribly primitive. Space does not allow for all the areas where the transformation should begin but it has to start with political culture. Mr. Granger’s party is the PNC. Despite the political degeneration we saw under the Burnham presidency, the two PNC Governments under Burnham and Hoyte brought enormous positive changes.
Mr. Hoyte’s pathways need to be emulated by Mr. Granger. Sadly, the PNC in power under Mr. Granger is back-peddling on the perestroika doors Mr. Hoyte opened, and that all PPP presidents since 1992 closed tightly. Space has run out so I will have to leave political culture for another column.
Suffice it to say the way the City Councillors and members of the Finance Committee were selected at City Hall since the LGE is an ominous sign for the future. Mr. Granger needs to compose a transformative song right now if he is to leave a lasting legacy.

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David Granger should never let this moment disappear

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