Towards an enabling environment

Jan 22, 2017 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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For too long in Guyana we have done things the old traditional way with a rigid economy that depended on a handful of agricultural products. Many countries had long diversified their agricultural, manufacturing, services, commercial and other economic activities but Guyana was left behind, and the government of the day was just spouting political rhetoric, hoping to convince Guyanese and our international donors that they had sound economic policies.
The PPP’s true colours have been exposed. The Opposition is now in heat, accusing APNU-AFC every chance they get of the very things they themselves have perpetrated on the Guyanese people in the last two decades and three years – corruption, kickbacks, abject ignorance, and baseless loan accounts that our grandchildren will be repaying.
We wish to assure Guyanese that this government has already implemented some very transformative projects to improve your lives and livelihoods. We are in the process of interweaving Information, Communication and other types of Technologies into all facets of life. It is going to be a long, very involved process, but there are benefits from the get-go.
Specifically, the transformation of the public services is underway. The eGovernment Agency is in the process of installing hardware and software at key ministries and agencies for online digital services, e.g. to make the processes from application to production of passports or drivers’ and compliance licences easier. ICT has been integrated into the GRA’s services, into in-country and international trade, and we are currently looking for the fastest means of introducing telemedicine to Guyana, and expanding available resources for eLearning at the secondary and tertiary levels.
We have corrected much of the bad infrastructure and turned around the previous (perceived) unwillingness among the ICT skill pool to participate. We have turned around the legacy of ICT mismanagement and functional incompetence that was entrenched when the administration changed in 2015.
We have found working remedies for the failure of the Fibre Optic cable that the previous government had landed from Brazil, the same cable that was laid on the top soil along the Linden/Lethem road (instead of being buried). This delicate cable had to be discarded because it was badly handled, badly damaged.
The PPP had given over ownership of it to a building contractor just before the 2015 elections … the same cable that could have been providing ICT capacity to our people in hinterland regions. It could not be repaired, but this government is still paying back the Billion-dollar loan. That was willful squandermania.
The point is that we seem to forget quickly. We’ve forgotten how broken our citizens had become because your rights had been taken away. We’ve forgotten how we had to personally beg individuals at the inaptly named ‘Freedom House’ for our potholed streets to be fixed, or for our children’s school to be repaired because a seven-year-old had fallen through the floor. We forget that we could not buy a piece of land at the front of Providence or Eccles, East Bank Demerara, because large parcels had been sold, gifted or bartered away to government executives, their confederates and a handful of foreign investors with deep pockets.
At the Administrative level, the independence of many key institutions was stripped away to allow for hands-on control, for people in ‘high places’ to purchase bolts and nuts or toilet seats for thousands of U.S. dollars, or to utilize your taxes to pay millions to somebody’s friend/relative who made sloppy repairs to a government-owned building.
We forget the numerous reports of bribe taking to allow ‘contractors’ to buck the system and ultimately deliver nothing.
Before 2015 there were countless communities that never had pipes or wells to take potable water to their communities, much less to their homes. They have that now, and they have street lamps for the very first time in decades in communities in Berbice and East Bank Demerara.
This is just a snapshot of the mess we have been cleaning up since assuming office in May 2015. We really did underestimate the volume of filth, corruption and the widespread practice, high and low, of bending the regulations. The broken systems are being fixed, but it will certainly take more than a year or two.
It was not unexpected that the economy would underperform in 2016. Budget 2017 was crafted to balance out the underperforming sectors with the ones that are turning in profits, and with the anticipated success of imminent projects such as the economic zone that is being established at Lethem.
Now this latter project is by no means a new one. It was a private sector initiative that had been on the PPP’s table for quite a few years. It was never on their agenda. Today it’s on our agenda. We’re going to make it happen, just like our promise to take the internet to the Hinterland. It’s already there in some communities. In Lethem, the eGovernment Unit has to complete some remedial work on the LTE tower then the town will be internet-connected.
Today many countries are under the strain of a contracting world economy – Trinidad, Suriname, Brazil and Venezuela to name a few. Guyana can grow and we can only hope that our citizens become immune to the opposition’s destructive sensationalism and rank propaganda flowing like so much sewage.
They are trying to destroy your hopes and your drive to go where you need to be, but they refuse to come to the table with ideas that put the citizens first.
Please do not allow the PPP to hijack your future! We promised you an enabling environment, and that’s what we’re determined to provide.

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