President Ali must resurrect the Manning Initiative: CARICOM saved us many times

Feb 20, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Kaieteur News – In a brief conversation with President Ali, I advised that he must devote time to shaping a legacy that will take its place alongside the contributions of other great Guyanese. Unless he is not the presidential candidate in 2025, then he has eight years to do it. I believe the incumbent will win in 2025. I cannot see how this is not legally possible.
This is a complex, difficult country to administer but a significant intervention can now alter the course of history. Guyana has substantial oil deposits and even though one would have wished for a better investment contract with EXXON, there will be income from that industry that will reshape the political economy of Guyana.
I saw in an interview programme, a fervent anti-PPP politician, Clive Thomas, echoing that sentiment. I also saw an interview with a pro-PNC businessman, Stanley Ming, expressing some confidence in the Ali presidency.
The president should use oil revenue to transform this country’s political economy not its economy only. I stress the term, political economy. He must use the financial leverage he has to effect far reaching changes. One idea of mine is the resurrection of the Manning Initiative (MI).
The idea occurred to me because at the time of writing, the Barbados Prime Minister was in Guyana. For those too young to know about MI, it bears the name of then Trinidadian PM, Patrick Manning who advocated a mini-CARICOM within CARICOM. He wanted a closer integration process between Guyana, Trinidad and Barbados.
I grew up with Guyanese having mixed feelings about our Caricom neighbours, with Jamaica being the exception. Guyanese seem to like Jamaica and Jamaicans. As I grew older and became an academic, I found out that Guyanese business people were angry about the way Trinidad treated Guyana as a trading partner. There is still a basis for that anger.
But CARICOM is not only about trade. It is about an area of life in this big and bad world that the people who occupy common ground need to stick together. When it comes to Guyana, we must never forget that if it wasn’t for CARICOM there would be no Guyana.
I will offer four brief examples. 1 – It was CARICOM that pressured President Desmond Hoyte to hold free and fair elections. We attribute that effort solely to the US. But the CARICOM meeting at Mustique in St. Vincent played no small part on the pressure on Hoyte.
2 – CARICOM territories have preserved the existence of many Guyanese since the Burnham dictatorship. We flocked to those islands to find existence and we found it. CARICOM offers medical service to Guyanese families who cannot afford the expensive service in the US and who do not have and will not get an American visa.
I went to Miami for eye surgery courtesy of Father Andrew Morrison of the Catholic Standard. Years after when my eyes deteriorated, I could not have afforded to return so I went to Trinidad where the service was of international standards.
3 – In 1997, there was a deliberate attempt to create mayhem by rejecting the election results. Through the initiative of Sir Shridath Ramphal and Yesu Persaud, CARICOM intervened and Guyana was saved.
4 – CARICOM saved us again when there were sustained efforts over five months in 2020 to return Guyana to permanent, one-party rule. Guyana is alive today, receiving oil dollars that it can spend to extirpate the hopeless we have lived with for so long, thanks to CARICOM.
Our geographical proximity to Brazil and increasing trade with Latin countries should not dilute our relations with out genetic neighbours – CARICOM. With an expanding friendship with Barbados, and an increasing presence of oil employees from Trinidad in Guyana, this may be the time for President to re-examine MI.
I would suggest to President AIi, that since Guyana is one of the world’s most under-populated countries, we encourage more CARICOM nationals to come.
Guyana should be the first CARICOM land to abolish visa for our neighbours. There have been too many CARICOM nationals languishing in the jails here because they overstayed their time. Secondly, I think UWI should be approached to take over UG’s Faculty of Agriculture.
It makes no sense for UWI to have a Faculty of Agriculture. The three UWI countries constitute square miles that are just a small part of Guyana. There are no deep and extensive research possibilities in agriculture in those three countries than what obtains in Guyana.
Thirdly, have yearly exchange of police officers and public servants from the three countries working in each other countries. The world is entering a terrible phase and the further integration of CARICOM will become a survival kit.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---