The class struggle between Guyanese and Trinidadians

Apr 27, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

To understand the ongoing brutal contretemps between representatives of the Guyanese and Trinidadian business community we need to do so from a class perspective.

A significant component of the Guyanese capitalist class of the pre-independence era had their genesis in older family businesses who were dominant in the mercantile, timber, saw-milling and mining enterprises as well as the agricultural and services sectors.

This component was represented by the Muneshwars, the Sankars, the Raymans, the Baichandeens, the Deygoos/Boyers, the Thanis and the Kirpalanis, the Tangs, Kwang Hing and Yong Hing, and the Majeeds, among others. They had been competing with, but eventually replaced the Portuguese businessmen including, JP Santos, the Willems, the DeCairies, the Davsons, the Abdelnours,and the Eliases, save for the D’Aguiars in the brewery and rum industries, the Bettencourts in hand bag-making, the Fernandes, in shipping and land transportation and the Meckdecies in mining and land transportation. They were considered the ‘Old Guard’ of the pre-independence business era.

Later came a number of Indian nationals including the Mohans, the Bhojwanis, and many others. By that time a new generation of Guyanese businessmen had sprung up, they were heirs of older businesses belonging to the Kissoons, the Seepersaud-Marajs, the Alli-Shahs, the Sankars, the Persauds, the Jaikarrans, the Nagar Sawh, the Jaigobins, the Mazahrallis, the Boyer/Deygoos, the Beepats, the Puris, the Gafoors,and Lysons whose rise to prominence came in the early post-independence era.

Some in this new wave of Guyana’s capitalist class took to the manufacturing sector, while others entered into the services sector and wholesale and retail business. But many were birthed when the PPP Government of 1957 -1964 established the first industrial estate at Ruimveldt. This crop of post-independence entrepreneurs ruled the roost for a number of decades. They represented the overweening hubris of the business elite

In pre-independent Guyana, the capitalist class was dominated by foreigners including the Booker Group, WM Forgarty, Sanbach-Parker and Weiting and Richter among others.

They co-existed with the nascent local petit bourgeois and entrepreneurial class beginning from the early 1940’s to the mid-1960’s when they were severely routed by the 1962-1964 disturbances. Many, especially the Portuguese business elite fled the country. From the early 1970’s to mid-1980’s, rigged elections, the emergence of a dictatorship who pursued a policy of ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy squeezed many out of business.

The growth and development of market forces in Guyana was stymied during the 1970’s and early 1980’s as a result of the mismanagement of the economy, a heavy debt burden, as well as the marginalization and near destruction of the business community.

Compounding what eventually became an economic crisis, was the severe shortage of foreign exchange and the concomitant restrictions imposed on imported goods

Under these conditions, many businessmen opted to engage in illicit financial, economic and trade activities claiming it was for the good of the country when in fact it was clearly aimed at blatant profiteering by exploiting the weaknesses of a tottering economy and a corrupt and degenerate political apparatus.

The mid-1980’s saw a marked freeing up of market forces when the once faltering economy received a shot in the arm by the then Hoyte administration.

Through privatization of a number of state entities and properties, Hoyte sought, on the one hand, to incubate another hue of the business class while on the other, attacking what remained of the Portuguese business community labeling them the ‘Putagee mafia’.

When Hoyte’s newly minted businessmen emerged, they opportunistically sought to flaunt their political allegiance unabashedly by establishing Committees for the Re-election of the President (Hoyte) at home and abroad

Thus from the 1990’s to 2015 and much later, another genre of Guyanese capitalists had sprung up.

Viewed as separate but intersecting components of the Guyanese business class they morphed into a larger body resulting in a tectonic shift in the history and evolution of the business community in Guyana.

Each of the intersecting components of this class of people have deep roots in Guyanese society. Further, under conditions of a small (market) economy, the components, while co-existing side by side and in competition with each other, pursued different economic and specialized interests. At the same time, within the meaning of a small economy, they engaged in mutually reinforcing, business relationships beneficial to each other and to what may be considered ‘national (capitalist) development’ as a whole.

As the intersecting components of the Guyanese business class grew vertically and horizontally they differed from each other in financial status. There are those who are rich and those who are super rich. But that notwithstanding, they all have one fundamental objective in mind, to maximize the returns on their investment as quickly as possible irrespective of the size and scope of their financial investments.

Seven years later, with the assumption to office by the freely elected PPP/C government, the new administration declared: ‘A new government will reshape its economic agenda with emphasis on social policy. The PPP/C government will do all in its power to promote local business and the develop ment of an economy in which Guyanese businessmen play a significant role. To expand the base of local businesses while at the same time seeking to attract foreign capital’.

The PPP/C government went on to state; ‘It will provide generous tax holidays and other incentives to encourage local and foreign entrepreneurs to invest in the development of resource-based manufacturing industries in all areas.’

Having laid down its economic development policy, the capitalist old guard looking to earn some extra money in the new dispensation, seized the opportunity to assert themselves, while the new breed of capitalists wasted no time enriching themselves mightily by leveraging a combination of political and social platforms at their disposal.

Meanwhile, their Trinidadian counterparts, buoyed by cheap energy and powered by a dynamic oil and gas industry, had consolidated their economic power and political influence in the twin-island republic. They had made significant progress with the support of venture capital in the manufacturing and services sector because of cheap energy.  Exports of goods and services accounted for a significant portion of the twin-island’s GDP. The island’s private sector was poised to assume an aggressive role within the CARICOM market flooding the internal markets of Jamaica, Barbados and Guyana with ‘Made in Trinidad’ products and effectively swamping the domestic markets of the Eastern Caribbean countries.

Here in Guyana, the business community was woefully lagging behind with reliance solely on bauxite, gold, timber and agricultural exports including rice and sugar. But the Guyanese capitalist class had already lost almost two decades in terms of its growth and development when compared to the rapid development of their counterparts in Trinidad and Tobago.

In the meanwhile, another genre of the Guyanese business class had emerged, Their genesis was the middle class, a growing cadre of young professionals and petit bourgeois elements. Many came from rich and super rich families in the mining and farming communities including the rice and sugar industries. I call them the ‘Young Upstarts.’ Afflicted by a ‘grow up at all costs’ mentality, they emerged at a time when oil and gas was discovered in Guyana.

It was this group that aggressively challenged their Trinidadian counterparts who they viewed as a threat to their share of the pie as exemplified in Guyana’s oil and gas industry.

These ‘Upstarts’ are part of modern capitalism who, for sometime, spend a large portions of their lives on-line and in an era of innovation and opportunity that gives them space allowing them to morph into a physical force impacting policy formulation at the level of cabinet and government as a whole.

At the center of this maelstrom is this group of young, wealthy and charismatic business executives who have declared themselves capable of positioning their companies to take advantage of an economy that is rapidly developing. They have demonstrated extraordinary levels of boldness and ambition and a willingness to bet big as reflected in the US$300M Vreed-en-hoop Shore Base Facility. As Guyana’s economy continues to move at breathtaking speed, the fight for space in Guyana’s oil and gas industry between the Guyanese and Trinidadian business class reached new heights with the passage of the Local Content legislation, and when Spokespersons on behalf of government made statements backing the Upstarts in their fiery resentment and quest to restrict the aggressive inroads by the Trinidadian business class in Guyana’s oil and gas services sector.

The class struggle has already manifested itself at CARICOM Heads of Government meetings, it will undoubtedly, reach the confines of the CCJ.

Yours faithfully,

Clement J. Rohee

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