A land that is richly endowed and truly blessed

Jan 08, 2017 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

In his address to the nation on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Guyana’s independence His Excellency Brigadier David Granger President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana said, “We are proud of our achievements over the past fifty years. We are proud of our efforts to transfer our people from logies and tenement yards into their own homes. We are proud of the infrastructure that was embedded and the opportunities provided to our people to hold the highest offices in our public service. We are proud of having established a University of Guyana, a Teachers’ Training College, the multilateral schools that provided greater access to education for our children and the health facilities throughout the ten administrative regions.
Guyana achieved all of these things and more even as we faced threats to our territory and to internal unity. We resisted, for fifty years, the threat to more than two-thirds of our territory by Suriname and Venezuela. We repelled an incursion into a large part of our country claimed by Suriname. We suppressed an internal insurrection in the Rupununi in 1969. Our nation has faced its tribulations but, because of our unity and strength, we have overcome them”
As we close the book on the first fifty years of political independence and look towards our centenary, the prospect of achieving economic independences are real. There is no doubt that within the next fifty years Guyana will emerge as a prosperous modern state. The recent discovery of oil bearing sandstone reservoirs in our territorial waters (the Stabroek Block), signals the beginning of our commercial petroleum industry.
It is reasonable to assume that there will be other petro-carbon discoveries off shore and even on-shore. This new development (oil) taken in conjunction with government’s policy to promote social cohesion, national unity and a green economy can work to the benefit of ensuring that Guyana emerges in the short term as a small global player.
President Granger in his address to the nation shared similar optimism when he said, “Guyana should not be a poor country. Guyana is endowed with rich natural resources. We are among the smartest and most industrious persons in the world. We have always been known to possess the values of self-sacrifice and solidarity. We possess the resources – both human and natural – to banish poverty.”
We have all heard time and again that Guyana is a land of great potential. However successive generations have failed to maximize on that potential. We have all boasted that Guyana is the only English-speaking country on the South American continent; an English-speaking state, whose geo-strategic location, natural resources and market access position us to become a significant regional player.
Our strategic geographical location makes us a natural bridge to Caricom and the huge South American continental market. Our resources which include gold, diamonds, bauxite, sand, stone, manganese, water, oil and timber are the envy of many, who only possess white sand beaches.
We have 15 million hectares of pristine forest, more than 200 types of fruit and vegetables along with large expanses of arable agricultural lands. Guyana is also the signatory to numerous international trade agreements and preferential bilateral arrangements. Guyana is a land that is richly endowed and truly blessed.
Guyana over the next decade must position itself to take advantage of the fact that both food and water are scare global commodities. We must move from producers of raw material to exporters of finished value added products.
We must become the food-basket of the region again.
Caricom countries import over US$4 Billion annually in food, and the global need for both fresh water and food will become more acute in the next two decades. In short, Guyana’s economic prosperity is achievable because of its natural endowments and we must capitalize on this now.
In his charge to the nation, President David Granger said, “Every generation has the responsibility to move our country closer towards the common aspirations which were ignited on May 26, 1966 Independence – the dream of the good life for us, our children and our grandchildren.
Our fore-parents sacrificed so that we could have a better life than they did. The responsibility of this generation is to lay the foundation for the good life for our children and grandchildren. The next fifty years must find us engaged in realizing that vision.”
A prosperous and productive 2017, from A Partnership for National Unity- APNU

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