The promise of riches

May 17, 2019 Editorial

Guyanese can thank (or blame) Simon Maybin for planting a tantalizing tree in his BBC online article dated May 9 titled, “Will Guyana soon be the richest country in the world?”
In double-quick time that qualifier “soon” could be gone. Too long. First time for this one about being the richest, though. Mesmerizing. Realizable, too. Per capita comes to mind; it can be; the divisor is small with a population of only 750,000.
Former American Ambassador Perry Holloway was quoted as saying last November, “Come 2025, GDP will go up by 300% to 1000%. This is gigantic. You will be the richest country in the hemisphere and potentially the richest country in the world.” Say some more, please.
As citizens get ideas, a word of caution, fears are that that this richness will not reach the poor. Crooked politicians and bureaucrats could see to that. The BBC article mentioned Sophia, with a telling note that the homes there are self-built. Fact. Not limited to Sophia, but can extend to all points across the regions, the schemes like Kaneville, South Cummingsburg (Tiger Bay), Albouystown , and the depressed communities in the hinterlands.
The expectants are looking for the wealth effect to cascade down, not trickledown in meaningless droplets, to those needing a hand the most. Those specks of state largesse, barely visible to begin with, must be reduced by a heavy subtraction for the “rampant corruption” as identified by a contributor in the public fight against what is a national scourge.
Everybody is an authority on how to spend the uncollected cash. Free gas and electricity. Free cash. Freedom from taxes. And on and on. Guyana has just won Powerball and Megamillions and the Sweepstakes and the rest with one ticket.
From another corner, there is emphasis on education; a quality one. That one calls for money, and lots of it: infrastructure, quality faculty, and a pool of talented young students. The horizon darkens perceptibly with the latter. That pool is shallow as to quantity of the truly talented; it lags devastatingly in the demanded disciplines of mathematics and sciences. The word is engineering. People have to know their numbers.
Smart phones are not much help; social media could distract and weigh down when used irresponsibly for the wrong priorities. Education suffers; too many clustered at the average level and below the excellence watermark. Can be telling on the next level that depends on the feeder system.
It is a weak system that neither cultivates nor builds the type of student that can wrestle with and overpower the complexities of torque, compression, dynamics, and the rest.
This is the future. This country threatens to be a welfare society. This leaves behind many idle natives to watch and curse outsiders, who have to carry the country and collect the cash. The locals are left with whining over their fate and relegated to waving the flag during national celebrations. Subsidies can make for a ready supply of such patriots.
The riches come with warnings. The writer reminds of curse and the precipices of local politics. Nobody is listening. Great irony is that the potentially richest country is determined to remain divided and destroy its chances of reaching that rare and prestigious pinnacle.
Guyanese prefer to be tribal and poor (and dumb) than national and prosperous (smart, too). No more energy; less oxygen to spend on a horse that keeps on losing. No bettors. No cheerleaders. No boisterous crowd for that nag named unity and cohesion and all the many false names that it has acquired over the decades. Nonstarter.

Continue along the same defeatist tracks and get ready to kiss probability of being the richest goodbye. Mr. Maybin pointed to Venezuela. He didn’t have to. Guyanese know; their leaders do, too. The word is: who cares? Big deal.

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