Setting mega goals can quickly dissolve into wishful thinking in an unpredictable world

Jun 29, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

Our major parties, while in government, tout their achievements at national development. They point to the house lots distributed; the schools, health facilities, and roads built and rebuilt; and, generally, to the large budgets spent on this and that. All good. So, what is my complaint here? My complaint is that our governments do not commit to any overarching ambition and do not measure progress by the ground that remains to be covered. They sometimes speak of having comprehensive plans, but only halfheartedly or rhetorically. They rarely set milestones or deadlines to achieve, build, or eliminate anything. As such, we often hear that so many house-lots have been distributed. But we are never told by what date all families will own their own comfortable homes. We hear about expenditures on health. But do we hear about the deadlines for achieving the standards of an effective health care system, such as low mortality and disease incidence rates?
Take, as another example, poverty elimination. Has any of our governments framed anything so ambitious yet specific as the goal in Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan to lift five million children out of poverty this year, cutting child poverty by more than half? Yet, Guyana has one of the highest poverty rates in the region—with several appalling consequences such as child malnutrition and women disempowerment. When do we plan to wipe out poverty from our midst?
What large and concrete target setting we see in our social and economic policy is mostly driven by the requirements imposed on us by donor agencies. Or is merely uttered as hollow rhetoric to serve the moment.
Sure, we do realise that politicians are reluctant to set ambitious SMART targets and thereby run the office-losing risk of failing to meet their own performance tests. Burnham’s failure to “Feed, Clothe and House the Nation by 1976” is often cited as evidence of his ineffectiveness. But the country now requires courageous and ambitious goal setting with deadlines to achieve key development goals, such as poverty eradication, full employment, guaranteed minimum household income, and free and quality social services. A government wallowing in small ideas and averageness is no longer an option for our tired people.
True also, setting mega goals can quickly dissolve into wishful thinking in an unpredictable and uncontrollable world. Oil, however, has blessed us with more assured and adequate revenues over the next several decades. Opportunity has now surged, and uncertainty and risk have now reduced. Ensuring no child or citizen is left behind can now be more than a pipe dream.
All that aside, a suspicion however lurks. Since the magnitude of the oil finds became apparent, our large political parties have not shown much BMT (Big Match Temperament). Examine the last few national budgets and you detect a timid caution, an unwillingness to go outside the tattered box, and a reflexive devotion to incrementalism. Do the parties have BMT? Could this be the core obstacle to transforming the country?
With three FPSOs in production by 2024/25, our earnings would jump considerably both as a result of higher production and a larger slice of it. If any government cannot set and execute sweeping and time-bound goals to reduce/remove the major ills and hardships citizens face daily, that government is not equipped to rule. One of the first tests is the total elimination of poverty over the short term.
Yours truly,
Sherwood Lowe

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