Responding to Badal – Guyana’s Decade of Development

Jan 12, 2020 Letters

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Dear Editor,

On January 4th, 2020 in Kaieteur News, a letter to the Editor authored by one Robert Badal made accusations that the Collation Government has achieved nothing since 2015, and that the Decade of Development programme and vision of the David Granger led Coalition Government is just a slogan and full of contradictions. It is clear that the letter by Mr. Badal, leader of Change Guyana political party, sought to dampen the enthusiasm and excitement of Guyanese at home and abroad regarding the visionary Decade of Development programme launched on January 1, 2020 by the Coalition Government. It would also appear that Mr. Badal, while attempting to discredit Guyana’s Decade of Development by referring to it as “slogans and contradictory policies,” revealed a lot about the his character. Why didn’t he start his own party prior to 2015 when the then PPP-led Government literally took business away from Pegasus Hotel?
So let me help Mr. Badal with his research, because apparently he did not want to do the necessary research prior to making claims of slogans and contradictory policies he now, conveniently, levels against the APNU/AFC Coalition. Even more alarming is Mr. Badal’s attempt to fool the Guyanese public, yet he is promising change.
The first lie that Mr. Badal wrote, is that the Coalition lacked vision, since the Guyanese people voted for unity, change and a working class approach to regional and national governance. Mr. Badal would know well that the Coalition inherited a mountain of problems in all areas of our society. But since he either chose not to do his homework, had no interest to communicating verifiable facts, I will help him recall that within less than a year of being elected, the Coalition fulfilled its promise of hosting local government elections, which have put the power of community and regional development back in the hands of the people. Each region now has its own distinct flag, there are development plans for each region called Plan of Action for Regional Development (PARD) that have been completed for regions 4 (Georgetown has its own plan), 9 and 10, and hundreds of youth and mature Guyanese that never had the chance to influence and participate in local and regional development, are now rightfully enjoying the opportunity that Coalition Government helped to achieve. The PPP, during its 23 years in office, never once sought to empower local government organizations; rather, it tried its best to usurp the powers of these organisations and install PPP operatives as Interim Management Committees.
Between 2017-2018, the Coalition Government collaborated with the Private Sector Commission, Regional Democratic Councils, the United Nations and several partners, completed Guyana’s Green State Development Strategy – Vision 2040 (GSDS). I suspect Mr. Badal has not read this either, because he would have gotten more than sufficient enough information to avoid uttering inaccuracies and appearing hypocritical and out of touch with ordinary Guyanese while he claims to want to change Guyana.
Since 2015, we have also seen the installation of CCTV cameras, strategically placed at multiple locations across several regions. We have also seen the launch of the Caucus of Indigenous Peoples which will become an annual caucus, with its own budget, not a Government controlled budget we experienced with the National Toshao Council when the PPP was in office. Another visionary work is the digital link now established between NIS and the Guyana Revenue Authority which makes it more difficult for corrupt efforts to evade or misrepresent tax and pension information among other things. Moreover, since 2015, a total of 171 ICT Hubs have been installed in each region to help train youth in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in particular.
In 2016, Guyana and the Kingdom of Norway renegotiated its Forest Protection Agreement, after Norway withheld US$ 18m from Guyana due to the failure of the PPP-led Government to fulfill its responsibilities under this agreement which was signed since 2009. Fast forward to 2018, the Coalition managed to fulfill a number of conditionalities which resulted in Norway releasing US$ 14m to Guyana.
Finally, Mr. Badal said that the Coalition Government has made no important strides in education, information, and communication technology investments and local content pertaining to our emerging oil and gas sector. There is so much information I can share with respect to each of these three areas, but for the sake of brevity, let me share just a few. Our public school curricula as well as the teacher training curricula, from primary to tertiary level have been updated to emphasis more research-driven learning and in keeping the UNESCO’s Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development framework and Guyana’s Education for Sustainable Development policy. Moreover, it is not a coincidence that the 2019 graduating class of the University of Guyana, was the largest ever in the history of Guyana. This was immediately followed by one of the largest ever enrollment classes in the 2019/2020 academic term. Mr. Badal would do well to also learn more about the STEM Guyana Programme, and the support Government continues to provide to ensure our youth have access to the latest training in robotics, computer science and so forth which they apply to help solve community and broader societal challenges. As a result of the Five B’s Programme (Buses, Boats, Bicycles, Books and Breakfast, approximately 30,000 rural and indigenous students can now attend school, and receive meals while in school.
Regarding Mr. Badal’s attempt to link ongoing efforts to limited job opportunities in the emerging oil and gas sector, this is another propaganda tactic to mislead the people of Guyana. In fact, there are hundreds of Guyanese already working in this sector, just ask the local recruitment organizations and the oil companies and their business partners.
Moreover, contrary to what Badal stated, Guyana is preparing to finalise its local content policy which is in its 3rd draft. I have highlighted a few positive developments with respect to job growth over the past 4-5 years:
– The Special Youth Innovation Fund launched with a budget of $50M to support budding young entrepreneurs and their businesses. (Guyana Chronicle, 9 January 2017)
– Small Business Bureau helped support over 200 businesses through partial loan guarantees and grants worth around $180M in 2018, creating 535 jobs.
– In the first half of 2018, Guyana Office for Investment (GO-Invest) assisted 57 projects with an investment value of $10.4B creating approximately 700 new jobs.
Under the leadership of His Excellency David Granger, Guyana is much better off than we were prior to 2015, and I am very excited about the planned activities to help our people fulfill our potential as a nation of skilled, educated, united and prosperous people. I await Mr. Badal’s evidence to the contrary.

Sincerely
R. Small

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