Absence of national unity impairs Guyana’s development- Granger tells Parliament

May 13, 2016 News

By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
President David Granger thinks that national unity is the key to unlock Guyana’s true potential as an independent nation. He said that disunity has been hindering Guyana’s development for far too long and it is time that Guyanese make the change to see the change.
This was Granger’s message as he addressed the Parliament yesterday.

President David Granger

Celebration of Guyana’s 50th anniversary of its political independence from Britain was the focal point of Granger’s presentation. In the familiar walls of the Chambers, Granger reflected on colonial Guiana as compared to Guyana just after independence to where the country stands now.
Granger said that Guyanese can be proud of what has been achieved in the first 50 years of Independence.
“These are the first fruits of freedom which have fed and nourished a generation.”
President Granger told the House that independence offered Guyanese the opportunity to work together, to heal divisions and to promote reconciliation. He added that Independence also offered an opportunity for national unity. “But that national unity, however, has been elusive for most of the last five decades.”
“The absence of national unity has impaired national development. It has triggered a continuous trickle of migration. It has led to political and economic fatigue,” the Head of State reflected.
He charged the parliamentarians to renew “that Independence covenant” with the Guyanese nation. He said that it is imperative that the House resolves to work together to reunite Guyana. “The National Assembly must take the first steps on the long road to social cohesion, to political inclusion and to economic resilience.”
Granger emphasised that today’s generation has an obligation, at the celebration of the Independence Jubilee, to repair past damage, to restore trust and to rebuild the bases of a ‘moral community.’
The President said that social cohesion is about fostering greater integration in the nation, which can increase a sense of belonging. He said that it can give recognition to all groups and allow them to freely practice their culture.
POLITICAL INCLUSION
President Granger told the Parliament that Guyana’s future stability depends, also, on wider political inclusiveness. He said that the ethnic arithmetic of the past can only mean that a minority could be excluded from a government by a majority, however slim.
The Head of State said that the political landscape in Guyana has become a battlefield, “not always of ideas, but of racial rivalry. Communal conflict hampered human development. Mr. Speaker, that system belongs to the past. It is now dangerously dysfunctional”.
He pointed out that communities have recently been liberated from the “paralyzing failure to conduct Local Government Elections.”
The President said that the creation of new capital towns – Mabaruma in the Barima-Waini Region, Bartica in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni Region and at Lethem in the Rupununi region – will improve the provision of services to those hinterland regions.
“We need regular municipal and local elections in order to afford citizens a greater stake in the affairs of their communities; in order to provide incentives for economic activities, including the development of small businesses. Our people have been deprived of local democracy for over eighteen years, but this will not happen again. It won’t happen again.”
Granger boasted that his government has initiated the Constitution reform process. He said, “It must aim at strengthening this particular provision to ensure that the intended ‘inclusionary’ system is made to work. It must be extended, that is to say, the reform process must be extended to involve consultations with citizens in their communities in all ten regions. Every eligible elector in this Republic must be given the chance to be heard so that our country could advance with a Constitution in which we all have confidence.”

1 thoughts on “Absence of national unity impairs Guyana’s development- Granger tells Parliament”

george wiltshire May 13, 2016 at 10:55 am

Mr. President are you aware that many local government workers are not getting the minimum wage of fifty thousands dollars . How long will it be before they get it? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.